A problem in today’s society is that teens don’t get enough sleep. On average teens get 5-7 hours of sleep, when really they should be getting 8 ½ to 10 hours a night. A big influence is the time school starts.

Many schools in the Chicagoland area start school at around 7:40. This means teens must get up anywhere from 6:15-6:45 to get to school on time. Research shows that pushing the start of school back as little as 25 minutes can cause significant changes. Studies have found increased amount of sleep teens get to an increase in attendance, academic performance and mood, and a decrease in driving accidents and risky behaviors. Delaying school start times reduces the number of driving accidents involving teen drivers.

But pushing the school day back too much may cause kids to have to stay up later at night. Working at night can be just as useless as working too early in the morning. Emily Eddins (senior at Nazareth) states, “I’m against later starting periods because it will end up pushing back our after school activities, and I will end up getting home later; and I already get home around 6 o’clock.” There is very little room to push back the school starting time. If it is pushed back too much, teens will have to stay up later to finish their work, but not pushing it back enough will have no effect. Both situations would be pointless. Experts say anywhere from 25-40 minutes (at most) would have the best effect on the students brain function.

Pushing back the start to the school could help teens get more sleep, but it could also do more harm than good.