Why Psychologists Agree The School Day Should Start Later

Waking up early in the morning can be difficult for anyone. For teens who are soon returning to the routine of school, however, it can be brutal.

That's why many education advocates and adolescent psychologists say our school start times need to change. As much as we want to encourage students to have grit, our forcing them to sit at a desk at 7:30 a.m. or earlier has a much worse impact on their academics, emotional well-being, and safety than is often acknowledged, they say.

"All the research has always indicated, especially for kids in middle school and high school, that they would do better if they started later," said psychologist Susan Lipkins who specializes in children.

Not only is this conclusion supported by an extensive literature, it's the overwhelming consensus of the psychological community. Timothy Roehrs, a researcher at the Henry Ford Hospital sleep disorders clinic, confirmed that it's rare for there to be such strong agreement and such decisive evidence on this kind of question.

"The biology which creates the early-morning sleepiness [in young adults] is clear cut, the effect that it has is clear cut," he told Patch.

A sampling of the organizations that have explicitly endorsed the benefits of a later school start time for middle and high schoolers include highly respected groups such as the American Psychological Association, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Sleep Foundation and the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Why do teens in particular need a later start time? It's not mere crankiness or laziness. There are unique physiological and development changes that humans go through before entering adulthood that incline them to go to bed and wake up later than those who are younger or older.

"There’s a shift in their circadian rhythm to a later bedtime and a later time of rising," said Roehrs. "And that’s unlike young children before they have matured."

Lipkins concurred, pointing to changes in the level of melatonin and other hormonal shifts that alter teens' natural sleep-wake cycle.

"For many people in their growth spurt, which is in middle and high school, their bodies are telling them to go to sleep later, and to sleep later in the day," she said. "They also need more sleep as they grow because you’re actually physically growing while you sleep."

While there's no precise "perfect time" to begin school, experts tend to agree that 8 a.m. and earlier is far too soon for kids to be at a school. This is particularly true when kids live farther away from school; they may have to be out of the house a 6:45 a.m. to be in homeroom by 7:30, and they'll have to wake up even earlier than that to shower and eat breakfast.

This makes attaining the recommended eight to nine hours of rest a night a far-fetched dream. Pushing start times back to 8:30 a.m. or even 9 a.m. could give students much more needed time in bed.

If this is so obvious, why don't more schools follow the advice of medical professionals?

Lipkins and Roehrs both noted that one of the major reasons administrators give is school busing schedules. Few districts have enough buses to pick up all students of all age groups at once, so they usually stagger the trips; high schoolers are typically picked up first, then middle schoolers, then elementary school students.

Yet this gets things entirely backward, in terms of sleep needs. Young children often find it comparatively easy to wake up early. However, there may be legitimate worries about having younger children waiting at bus stops earlier in the day, particularly in the winter when it is likely to be cold and dark.

But even if busing issues are addressed, schools face coordination problems because of after-school activities.

"Most schools don’t change because they’re rigidly stuck in terms of sports. Most of the schools, when they compete athletically, are competing after school," said Lipkins. "And if all the schools are competing at a specific time after school, then their school has to compete at that time also. If you start school later, the athletes would be finished later, and everything gets pushed down."

This means for schools to change their schedules, they must coordinate the shifts with neighboring towns, which can prove difficult.

Other factors can drive a bias toward the status quo. Teachers may be used to certain schedules and reluctant to change; parents, too, may resist shaking up any childcare habits they have come to rely upon, such as relying on older children to be home early to greet younger siblings off the bus.

But when schools have managed to give older students a later start time, they've had impressive results.

Consider one representative study from 2014 that examined the effects of later start times on more than 9,000 students from eight different schools in three different states.

Later school start times were associated with students sleeping longer at night, less tardiness, less absenteeism, having higher test scores, being less depressed, using less caffeine and other drugs, being healthier overall and experiencing fewer morning car crashes.

Numerous other studies have found similar results.

Any one of these effects would be a compelling reason to consider making the switch. But the conglomeration of benefits makes the case so strong, it's hard to see why late start times haven't become ubiquitous.

Photo credit: Love Krittaya via Wikimedia Commons

(Editor's note: This story was originally published in 2016.)