School should start earlier, not later

The California legislature passed a law mandating that high schools start no earlier than 8:30 a.m. in light of a proven correlation between cognitive decline and a lack of sleep, and it’s a step in the wrong direction.

The effects of sleep deprivation are seen everywhere. Students struggle to stay awake in classes, feel too tired to do any work, or can’t pay attention and absorb information. According to the CDC, over 70 percent of high school students across the nation report getting less than eight hours of sleep. Students all across the country are not getting enough sleep, and as the Washington Times puts it, “lack of sleep is an escalating public health crisis.”

In order to comply with the new law and let students sleep in, CVHS moved its first period forward from 8:10 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. However, the early 2:30 p.m. release was removed from block days. This means that there are less daylight hours for recreation and extracurricular activities after school. 

Students have to reschedule or even cancel activities because of this change. An early starting time will allow an earlier release while preserving a seven to eight hour school day. This leaves students with more time to hang out with friends, play sports, do homework, and study while having a reasonable bedtime.

Later start times have brought up concerns about later bedtimes. Students at CVHS, such as Matthew Aguas and Maxim Boychuk, admitted that they have stayed up later because school started later. “Since school starts later, I’ve been more comfortable with staying up later knowing I can still get a good amount of sleep,” Aguas explained. 

This removes the entire point of pushing school start times back. A better solution to ensure that students get more sleep is to have school start earlier. If someone has to get up earlier, then they will sleep earlier, increasing the amount of sleep students get more reliably than later school start times.

Better mental and physical health, attentiveness, and attendance, are the main reasons to start school later is because of its correlation with sleep quantity and quality. However, starting school earlier can provide those benefits more reliably, while fixing its flaws. If sleep deprivation is an issue among students, then earlier school start times is the solution.