According to an article by the CDC, schools start too early and it is leading to detrimental impacts on the health of students. Not getting enough sleep has been linked to many health risks and a combination of late bedtimes of students and early school start times leads many students to not get the amount of sleep necessary.

A sleep survey was given to high school students to learn more about sleep deprivation and sleep health in high school students. An anonymous questionnaire was developed by reviewing past experiments. It was divided into 13 categories and asked students questions about their regular wake time/bedtime on both weekdays and weekends, sleep duration, sleep adequacy and more. The students were also asked to report their average academic grades and their school start time.

They found that students who obtained less than 7 hours of sleep on an average school night were found to have poorer school performance than those with more sleep.

A questionnaire was taken by 612 high school freshman, 314 of which were girls and 298 boys. The average age was 14.5. The Sleep Patterns Questionnaire (SPQ) given contained different sections. The students were to give one answer per question to the anonymous questionnaire.

63% of the students indicated they would like more sleep on school nights, and a higher proportion of females (67%) to males (58%) indicated they would like more sleep. Those who indicated they would like more sleep had a higher average score on the questions around depressive mood and had a greater frequency of tiredness. While these students were getting roughly the same amount of sleep, they were all affected differently.

385 students between the ages of 13 and 18 were enlisted from eight different high schools. For eight days, the students completed questionnaires, as well as using a sleeping log to record their sleep patterns. The study found that students who reported lower sleep quality also had less sleep on school nights, decreased daytime alertness, and increased depressed moods. This study found that students with a chronotype that caused them to get tired later in the evening and/or students who reported lower sleep quality were more likely to report lower grades. This suggests that both circadian chronotypes and sleep quality directly affect a student’s performance in school.