The Argument for Later School Start Times

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When I was in grade school, I used to have to wake up at 4:30 AM since school started at 7 AM. It took about an hour to travel to school, so I needed enough buffer time to prepare. Of course, we used to have shorter school hours as well, so we got to go home at 1 PM.

In high school, my schedule changed depending on what year I was on. As a freshman, I went to school before 7 AM and got home at 7 PM. That's 12 hours at school. Not to mention we had a lot of homework to do, so I stayed up until midnight, which meant I would only have a few hours of sleep since I needed to wake up at 5 AM the next day.

Things got worse when I was in junior year. I still went to school before 7 AM, but I got home at 9 PM some days because I had classes that went on until 7 PM on those days. It was the worst time of my life.

So, I agree with the idea that school should start later, but also that students shouldn't stay in school for too long either. High school students are still growing teenagers, and going through puberty makes things a lot harder to cope with the changes going on in the body.

Learn more about the argument for later school start times on The Conversation.