To the editor
Everyday teenagers arrive to school suffering from a lack of good nights’ sleeps. Therefore, day after day, students continue to fall asleep in their classes and are unable to work to their potentials.
Teachers find this disrespectful but students are not napping in class because they think the class is boring or because of the stale air pumping through the heating vents it is simply because they were unable to get enough shut eye the previous night.
School should start later in the day to synchronize their clocks with the students’ body clocks so that teens are in school when they are most alert and ready to achieve their full academic potential.
A lack of sleep affects the learning abilities of the teenage brain. The school day and school times are built for the adult brain, so as a result, the teenage brain suffers, according to Bradley Hospital sleep lab. Lack of sleep not only affects learning abilities, it also affects physical abilities and behavior habits of the student.
Tired students have trouble concentrating in school and staying on task. Sleep studies have shown that teenagers need between eight and a half to about nine hours of sleep each night and researchers have shown that pubescent changes in the body chemistry make it difficult for teens to get to bed early.
Therefore, combined with early school times students are not getting to bed in time to get a full night sleeps.
As a result, they will not be completely rested and prepared for the following day in school.
The average teenage brain isn’t ready to wake up until eight or nine in the morning. Hence, delaying the starting time for high school students would improve the academic performance of students. They would be more attentive in class and ready to work.
With increased alertness during classes, academic performance is bound to improve.
Hillsborough High School

