Sleep-deprived students

With school canceled for the foreseeable future, now would be a better time than ever to reform.

One thing I’d love to see be reconsidered in these uncertain times is the starting hours of school. If you ask almost any high school student, you can discern that not enough students are getting enough sleep. Right now, high school in my school district, Mead, starts at 8:10. (This doesn’t include extracurricular zero-hours, which bump it even earlier to 7.) The average teen needs 8 to 10 hours, which only around 15% of students get. A much greater 87% are chronically sleep deprived, all according to the National Sleep Foundation.

Seemingly, the answer to this is to go to sleep earlier, right? Well, studies by UCLA found that after puberty, the internal clock of the human body shifts later to around 11 p.m., making going to bed at 9 nearly impossible. In order for students to get much more meaningful sleep, I believe the school system needs to fit around the needs of the student before anything else.

Colin McKenna

Mead