California Today: Should the School Day Start Later?
Post date: Aug 3, 2017 5:08:07 PM
Mike McPhate
CALIFORNIA TODAY AUG. 2, 2017
Credit Randy Pench/The Sacramento Bee, via Associated Press
A California state measure would require middle and high schools to start later.
A groggy teenager is an underperforming teenager.
That’s the rationale behind a state bill that would require California’s middle and high schools to begin no earlier than 8:30 a.m., a policy favored by the American Academy of Pediatrics.*
The measure was crafted by State Senator Anthony Portantino, a Democrat. Asked to explain why it’s needed, he cataloged an array of benefits — including better grades, reduced risk of depression and fewer vehicle accidents — that he said was borne out by research.
“So,” he added, “what is the opposition talking about? They’re not talking about the science or the impact on teens. What they’re talking about is the impact on adults."
The more than three million middle- and high-school students in California now abide by a hodgepodge of start times across communities. The average is 8:07 a.m.
The California School Boards Association, which represents thousands of school board members, has opposed Mr. Portantino’s measure as too rigid for a population so large and diverse.
Republican lawmakers have also resisted the change during debates in the State Senate, where the bill advanced along party lines in May. It’s moving now through the Assembly.
State Senator Jim Nielsen, a Republican from Tehama County, said later start times would cause “tremendous upheaval” for many parents who drop their children off before work.
“I just don’t see it being worth the disruption of the lives of our children and of the parents, particularly, to try to manage those children,” he said.
A pair of adolescent sleep researchers at U.C. Davis, Ian G. Campbell and Irwin Feinberg, has expressed concern that promoters of the later school start movement are overselling it as a panacea for young people’s problems.
Dr. Campbell cited a study that pointed to a simpler and potentially more powerful remedy for flagging sleep among teenagers (not to mention adults).
Researchers found that exposure to artificial light was shifting people’s circadian cycles.
If you want your teenagers to get better sleep, Dr. Campbell said, a good place to start would be making them turn off their phones and tablets at night.
The American Academy of Pediatrics recognizes insufficient sleep in adolescents as an important public health issue that significantly affects the health and safety, as well as the academic success, of our nation’s middle and high school students. Although a number of factors, including biological changes in sleep associated with puberty, lifestyle choices, and academic demands, negatively affect middle and high school students’ ability to obtain sufficient sleep, the evidence strongly implicates earlier school start times (i.e., before 8:30 am) as a key modifiable contributor to insufficient sleep, as well as circadian rhythm disruption, in this population.
Furthermore, a substantial body of research has now demonstrated that delaying school start times is an effective countermeasure to chronic sleep loss and has a wide range of potential benefits to students with regard to physical and mental health, safety, and academic achievement.
The American Academy of Pediatrics strongly supports the efforts of school districts to optimize sleep in students and urges high schools and middle schools to aim for start times that allow students the opportunity to achieve optimal levels of sleep (8.5–9.5 hours) and to improve physical (e.g., reduced obesity risk) and mental (e.g., lower rates of depression) health, safety (e.g., drowsy driving crashes), academic performance, and quality of life.