Sleeping-In Plan Meets Opposition Later Start To School Day Not A Popular Idea

One federal lawmaker’s plan to make high schools start class at 9 a.m. has some North Idaho educators, parents and students losing sleep.

Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., introduced two bills this week to urge high schools to start and end their days later, offering them grants of up to $25,000 to help cover the schedule change.

The measures, which are waiting to be assigned to a congressional committee, are aimed at helping sleepy students learn more and at curbing after-school crime.

But school administrators say the proposals would not fly in North Idaho, where students often spend several hours commuting to and from after-school activities.

“We’ve looked at that in this district,” Sandpoint High School Assistant Principal Bill Miller said of the later start time. “For us in this school, it would create a real problem for kids who participate in activities. … Much educational research comes out of big city areas that seems to fail to take into account rural areas.”

U.S. Rep. Helen Chenoweth, R-Idaho, opposes the bill and says the federal government should not intrude on educational issues better left to states, spokesman Chad Hyslop said.

Starting school later runs counter to what schools are trying to do, Coeur d’Alene High School Principal Steve Casey said.

“What do they do when they have jobs at 8 or 9 in the morning?” Casey asked. “You’re trying to teach kids responsibility. They’re going to have to learn how to be in the workplace.”

In fact, both high schools in Coeur d’Alene will start at 7:45 a.m. this fall - 10 minutes earlier - because the buses are needed to take students to the new Woodland Middle School.

Sue Thilo, whose daughter will be a junior at Lake City High School this fall, said starting school later is not the solution.

“We’d all love to sleep in, but I don’t think that’s reality,” Thilo said. “Why don’t kids just go to bed earlier?”

Thilo’s daughter, Sarah, agrees.

“It’s better to start school early because then it will end earlier in the day,” she said. “There’s more time for after-school activities.”

But sleep experts say early schedules don’t fit with teenagers’ biological clocks.

Dr. Joseph Takahashi, a sleep researcher at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., said many studies show that adolescents tend to sleep later than others. Research also shows that sleep deprivation inhibits long-term memory, making it tough to pass that history test, Takahashi said.

“If you don’t sleep, you don’t remember,” he said.

Luke Denman knows what that feels like.

Denman, who will be a senior at Post Falls High School this fall, took a chemistry class last year that began at 6:45 a.m. Most classes at the school begin an hour later, but a few are offered early for students who work or participate in extracurricular activities.

Denman said many students snoozed in the back of the early morning class.

“That first-hour class was tedious, really tiring,” he said.

Denman, who said he goes to bed at 10 p.m. and wakes up about 5:45 a.m., said the proposed schedule change would help students catch a few more winks in bed - instead of in the classroom.

“It’d help a lot of students,” he said. “Nine o’clock would be OK, even 8:30.”