Forget late start Wednesday, it's about late start everyday

When my alarm rings in the morning, it’s almost impossible for me to not press the snooze button and go back to sleep. The truth of the matter is, I’m tired. No matter how long I sleep, it never seems to be enough. But I can’t bear to waste more time snoozing because of the glaring fact that I have to go to school, so I grudgingly slump out of bed and try not to be tardy. But is there a way to avoid all this? What if we could start school later in the day? After all, a couple more hours of sleep wouldn’t hurt.According to the National Sleep Foundation, teens should sleep for nine hours a night. The most ideal hours to sleep are between 11 p.m. and 8 a.m., since melatonin, the chemical that regulates your sleep cycle, is secreted during that time. I usually do go to bed at 11 p.m., it seems that I would be prepared for the morning ahead. Every morning, however, I lazily drag myself out of bed at 6 a.m. rather than the recommended 8 a.m., and get myself ready for school after seven hours of sleep. Due to this lack of slumber, I enter my AM class tired and drowsy.In addition, a lack of sleep can result in aggressive and inappropriate behavior as well as memory loss, a lack of focus and limited learning ability. Test Taking Central reported that sleep helps students synthesize and remember information. I know that in my AM Pre-Calculus/Calculus A honors class, I find it hard to focus because it’s so early in the morning, even though math usually comes easy for me.According to the National Sleep Foundation, getting more shut-eye leads to more concentration, alertness and focus. What better way is there to get more sleep than starting school later in the day? Whenever I have a math quiz on a Wednesday, I find myself doing better than I expected. My classmates seem to participate more and actually pay attention. (This is also true during the later periods of a regular day. For example, my second period AP World History class is participative and without a drip of coffee in sight.) This is not a coincidence — the New York State School Boards Association reported that changing the start times in 14 middle schools led to a 2.2 percent improvement in math scores and a 1.5 percent improvement in reading scores. In addition, a study by Education Next showed that middle school students in Wake County, North Carolina scored 2 percent higher in math and 1 percent higher in reading prior to starting school later.Sleeping later also impacted the middle school students in Wake County outside of school.  Not only did the students watch television less, but they also spent more time doing homework. Fewer students were absent after changing the start time of school.St. George’s School, a Rhode Island boarding school, also changed its school start time by half an hour. According to  “The Wall Street Journal,” the results that were found in the “Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine” showed that 54.7 percent of students had eight hours of sleep or more after the change, up from 16.4 percent. Also, the rate of depression fell from 66 percent to 45 percent, and teens with annoyed or irritated feelings dropped from 84 percent to 63 percent. “CBS News” added that students in the school were less tardy and had time to eat a hot breakfast.Some might think that slight change of start times would cause school to end later, disrupting after school activities and causing students to arrive home later. However, this does not have to be the case, for St. George’s School kept the same school dismissal time as before the time switch. According to “CBS News,” the school cut each class by five to ten minutes, but “improvements in student alertness made up for that lost instruction time.” There may be concerns that Samo would not meet the 240 minutes of instruction minimum that is required by all California high schools, which is listed in the California Education Code, if it cut down on class time. However, if Samo were to cut each period down to 50 minutes, the total instruction time would be 300 minutes, which is more than the minimum requirement.In order to help students not only get more sleep but also improve test scores and behavior, Samo and other middle and high schools in the district should change their start time. Students would be able to get more sleep, perform better on tests and act positive. The school would also benefit from this, since higher test scores can lead to a better Academic Performance Index (API) score and a better national school ranking for Samo. Many schools have been starting school later, including Olympic High School, which moved its start time to 9:15 a.m.. Even changing the start time by just 30 minutes can be helpful.After all, it could just be the difference between getting an A or a C on your next math test.