These superintendents faced the same pushback and perceived obstacles that every district cites—transportation, athletics, staffing, and myriad otherr community concerns—and still found solutions that worked.
Their message is unmistakable: later start times aren’t aspirational. They’re achievable, sustainable, and transformative when leaders choose to lead. To read more about what these superintendents shared and why their stories matter for communities everywhere check out the Full Substack article! by Terra Ziporyn  Conversations about adolescent sleep so often drift toward the same familiar culprit: screens. It’s an easy explanation, and it lets us imagine that a few household rules could fix a crisis affecting millions of students. But focusing on phones and “better habits” obscures the real issue: school schedules that run counter to adolescent biology.
When we treat sleep deprivation as a matter of personal responsibility, we overlook the one intervention that consistently works: aligning school start times with what decades of research tell us about teen sleep. It's easy, and sometimes gratifying, to blame the victim, but shifting the conversation from blame to biology is critical if we are serious about meaningful change. Read the full Substack post here: https://terraziporyn.substack.com/p/the-screen-time-scapegoat by Terra Ziporyn  For years, communities have relied on a strong and consistent body of research showing that later school start times support adolescent health, safety, and learning. Yet because this issue is such a controversial policy issue, it is tempting for people to seize on, spin, or oversimplify studies in ways that muddy the waters and confuse the public. And the impact isn't just theoretical. It has serious implications for children's health and well-being.
A recent example that supplies nuance to the benefits of starting later, but has been, instead, spun as a way to question the benefits altogether, shows how easily research in this area can be misread and misused. Instead of clarifying what we know about teen sleep and school schedules, it provides ready fodder for a public conversation using claims the study didn’t actually support. That kind of distortion risks undermining years of progress toward healthier, more equitable school hours. Science should inform policy, of course, and new research should be considered even if it casts doubt on reigning beliefs. However, science-informed policy starts with a full and thorough understanding of what a given study does and does not say. It also includes avoiding the temptation to seize on a headline and applying it to some preconceived contrarian notion rather than understanding how a single study fits into a much larger body of literature. It also involves considering the impact of a self-serving article or quip on decisions being made to protect student well‑being. To see a deeper dive into how this happens—and why it matters—you can read my full Substack post here: https://terraziporyn.substack.com/p/when-science-meets-spin Terra Ziporyn is Start School Later's Executive Director and Co-Founder by Terra Ziporyn  Anyone who has spent years pushing for healthier school start times knows how immovable a district can seem—right up until the moment it isn’t. Clark County, Nevada, long one of the most resistant districts in the nation, is now offering a master class in how quickly the “impossible” can become inevitable.
Not long ago, Clark County was fighting tooth and nail against later high school start times. Leaders dismissed the science, warned of catastrophic costs, and framed any shift as a logistical nightmare. They even pushed back against a statewide proposal to require high schools to start no earlier than 8:00 a.m. Then, almost overnight, the tone changed. With new leadership and a community‑driven review process, the district began acknowledging the benefits of later start times and speaking publicly about student well‑being in ways that would have been unthinkable just a year earlier. This kind of reversal isn’t unique. I’ve seen it in Columbia, Missouri, where a misguided proposal to start high school earlier ended up catalyzing a move to 9:00 a.m.—thanks in part to a well‑informed 15‑year‑old who refused to accept “impossible” as an answer. And I’ve lived it in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, where decades of stalemate gave way to an 8:30 a.m. high school start time after years of insisting even a 13‑minute shift was unworkable. Clark County’s new plan isn’t perfect—middle schoolers are still being left behind—but the mindset shift is a big deal. In fact, it’s the foundation every long‑term change is built on. It's also real inspiration for anyone still out there in the trenches. I explore the full story, and what it means for advocates everywhere, in my latest Substack post. Terra Ziporyn is Start School Later's Executive Director and Co-Founder The Ultimate Game-Changer: Why Sleep-Friendly School Start Times are Essential for Student Athletes1/12/2026
Sleep: The Foundation of Elite Performance Professional athletes have long recognized that sleep is a non-negotiable component of their success. LeBron James, widely considered one of the greatest basketball players of all time, famously prioritizes 10 to 12 hours of sleep a day to maintain his high level of play. James has noted that sleep is the best way for his body and mind to recuperate: "Sleep is the best recovery that you can have. It’s basically equivalent to you putting your phone in a charger when you go to bed... if you try to get the most sleep that you can get, that is the only way you’re gonna get back to 100 percent." He isn't alone. NBA star Andre Iguodala saw his performance skyrocket after overhauling his sleep habits with the help of physician-scientist Cheri Mah. By increasing his sleep duration and improving his routine, Iguodala’s three-point performance more than doubled, and his points per minute increased by 29 percent. The science bears this out across all levels of play. A landmark study of Stanford basketball players showed that when athletes aimed for at least ten hours of sleep a night, they saw a 9 percent increase in successful free throws and three-pointers, alongside significantly faster sprint times. Conversely, sleep deprivation acts as a drag on performance. Research tracking NBA players’ late-night social media use found that players who were up late tweeting performed significantly worse the next day, including making fewer shots. A Shield Against Injury For a student-athlete, an injury is more than just a physical setback; it’s a loss of identity, playing time, and often academic focus. Sleep is perhaps the most effective tool we have for injury prevention. When teens are sleep-deprived, their coordination, response time, and cognitive processing are impaired. A study of secondary school athletes found 65 percent of those who slept fewer than eight hours sustained injuries, compared to just 31 percent of those who slept more. Sleep is also the primary avenue for physical repair. It is during deep sleep that the body secretes growth hormones essential for muscle recovery and cell regeneration. Without enough sleep, the "micro-tears" created during intense workouts remain torn, increasing the risk of more severe muscle damage. Furthermore, sleep plays a bidirectional role with concussions: poor sleep increases the risk of sustaining a concussion, and a concussion can, in turn, trigger chronic sleep problems. Mental Health and the Rested Athlete Beyond the physical gains, sleep is the bedrock of mental health. Student-athletes face immense pressure to perform both on the field and in the classroom. Lack of sleep exacerbates anxiety, depression, and irritability. Neurologist Chris Winter notes that athletes who make sleep a priority "just enjoy longer and more sustainable success" and are less likely to burn out. Sleep helps athletes maintain the focus and emotional resilience needed to handle the "strain on anxiety levels" that comes with competitive sports and the recovery from inevitable setbacks. Does Starting School Later Actually Help? The evidence is clear: sleep improves performance and prevents injury. But can changing school start times actually deliver these benefits? The answer from athletic directors and researchers we’ve worked with is a resounding yes. Because of a biological shift in circadian rhythms during puberty, most teenagers cannot naturally fall asleep before 11:00 p.m. When school starts early, they are forced to cut their sleep short during the most critical hours for cognitive and physical recovery. By shifting start times later, schools allow students to get sleep that is synchronized with their biology. This isn't just theory—athletic directors who have made the switch report that their athletes are more alert, have more energy for afternoon practices, and show improved academic eligibility needed to play sports. Later start times also mean that student-athletes are less likely to rely on caffeine or "energy drinks" to get through the day, which can further disrupt natural sleep cycles. Addressing the Coaches' Concerns Common myths often suggest that later start times will ruin athletic programs by pushing practices too late. However, coaches who support later starts argue the opposite. They consider:
 Time for a New Playbook If we want our student-athletes to perform like LeBron James or Andre Iguodala, we must give them the same foundation those pros prioritize: sleep. We recognize that changing the schedule isn't always easy. Common concerns often arise regarding how later start times might impact practice and game schedules, facility availability, or transportation logistics. However, experience from schools across the country shows that these obstacles are surmountable when districts put the health and safety of students first. By working together—coaches, administrators, and parents—communities can find effective solutions. Maintaining the status quo of early start times is a recipe for increased injury, diminished performance, and compromised mental health. By shifting school start times later, we aren't just "giving kids a break"—we are giving them a competitive advantage and protecting their long-term well-being. It is time to align our educational schedules with the biological realities of the teenagers we serve. Let's make sleep the cornerstone of the student-athlete experience. Brendan Duffy, RPSGT, the former center coordinator at St. Charles Hospital Sleep Disorders Center in Port Jefferson, NY, is a sports and fatigue management consultant.
by Terra Ziporyn  For years, many of us assumed that if we simply presented the science on adolescent sleep, school leaders would naturally shift to healthier start times. After all, the evidence is overwhelming: later start times improve sleep health, mental health and emotional well-being, safety, and school performance. But evidence alone has never been enough—and that’s the part we too often missed. School schedules aren’t set by people who wake up thinking about circadian rhythms. They’re set by people juggling budgets, transportation contracts, staffing, sports, community politics, and the fear—often justified—of public backlash. Their resistance isn’t about not understanding the science. It’s about competing priorities, risk, and self‑interest. The turning point comes when we stop trying to change those interests and instead learn to align with them. When later start times become a solution to the problems decisionmakers already care about—attendance, graduation rates, equity, safety, even economic outcomes—doors open. And when communities understand what’s at stake for their own kids, political will follows. Healthy school hours aren’t just a sleep issue. They’re a systems issue involving a multitude of stakeholders with differing priorities. And when we frame them that way, without losing slight of the science, we create the conditions for real, lasting change. Read the full article here: 👉 A Matter of Interest https://terraziporyn.substack.com/p/a-matter-of-interest Terra Ziporyn is the Executive Director and Co-Founder of Start School Later.
by Terra Ziporyn, PhD  One of the first questions people ask about school start times is deceptively simple: How many districts have moved to healthier hours? It sounds like the kind of thing we should be able to answer with a clean number, a neat chart, or a tidy national map. But we can’t — and the reasons why say a lot about how education works in this country. There is no national database. No federal reporting requirement. No consistent state‑level tracking. Districts can change schedules quietly, sometimes partially, sometimes temporarily, and sometimes only for certain schools or grades. Some shift by ten minutes, others by an hour, and many don’t announce the change in any way that’s searchable. Even when we know a district has changed, it’s often unclear when, how, or for whom. And because the U.S. has nearly 14,000 school districts—each with its own calendar, politics, and communication habits—the picture is always incomplete. What we have instead is a patchwork: media reports, advocacy updates, scattered state data, and the stories families and educators share with us directly. Enough to see the momentum, but never enough to produce the simple number everyone wants. The absence of a clean tally doesn’t mean the movement is small or that there aren't other excellent ways to assess it. It means the system isn’t built to track change of this kind—even when that change is widespread, accelerating, and deeply consequential for kids’ health and safety. In the full piece, I explain why the question has no straightforward answer, what we can say with confidence, and what this lack of data reveals about the broader landscape: Read the Full Article at https://terraziporyn.substack.com/p/how-many-schools-have-moved-start Terra Ziporyn is Start School Later's Executive Director and Co-Founder
by Terra Ziporyn, PhD For decades we’ve known that early school start times are fundamentally misaligned with adolescent biology. Teens aren’t choosing to be tired—their circadian rhythms shift naturally during puberty, making it nearly impossible for them to fall asleep early enough to function at a 7:00 a.m. bell. Yet most middle and high schoolers in this country are still expected to operate at hours that would be considered unsafe and unacceptable in almost any other setting. Starting school later isn’t about indulgence, convenience, or giving teenagers “what they want.” It’s about giving them what many major medical organizations say they need: enough sleep to support healthy brain development, emotion regulation, learning, and basic physical safety. Districts that have made the shift consistently see the same results: better attendance, higher graduation rates, improved mental health, fewer car crashes, less substance misuse, stronger classroom engagement, and calmer, more focused classrooms. The research is overwhelming, but what’s equally striking is how quickly communities adapt once the change is made. The fears—about sports, buses, childcare, after‑school jobs—rarely materialize the way people imagine. In fact, many of the predicted obstacles shrink or disappear once communities decide alighing schedules with biology rather than tradition is a top priority. The real barrier isn’t evidence. It’s inertia. We’ve normalized a system that asks teenagers to perform at their cognitive low point and then blames them when they struggle. We can do better — and the path forward is clear. I walk through the science, the lived experience, and the practical realities in the full piece: https://terraziporyn.substack.com/p/the-case-for-starting-school-later  Terra Ziporyn is Start School Later's Executive Director and Co-Founder
 by Lisa Lewis
The issue of school start times first hit my radar in the fall of 2015, when my son entered high school. In our community, high school started at 7:30 a.m. But why? Was this the norm elsewhere, too? As a parent and a journalist, I started gathering information and writing about the topic. I also reached out to our district superintendent but got zero response. In the fall of 2016, I wrote about it again, for the Los Angeles Times. While the op-ed gave me a boost of local visibility, there wasn’t any immediate change. Having recently started up a local chapter of Start School Later after connecting with the group during my research, I shifted my focus to seeing what I could accomplish locally. Then, in January 2017, I found out my op-ed had sparked something bigger. State Senator Anthony Portantino, whose district is in Los Angeles, had read it. As it so happened, his daughter’s high school was in the midst of discussing later start times, so it was a topic that resonated with him. He looked into the issue further and decided to introduce a state bill. His office reached out to Start School Later, which agreed to sponsor the bill and looped in the state’s chapter leaders. That bill, SB 328, which proposed 8:30 a.m. as the earliest allowed start time for the state’s middle and high schools, was introduced in February 2017. There had been similar proposed legislation in other states, but nothing of this scope had ever succeeded. Almost immediately, the immensely powerful California Teachers Association, along with the California School Boards Association, decried the bill as overreach that impinged on local control. Meanwhile, the California Parent Teachers Association, focused on the bill’s merits for kids’ well-being, announced its support. The PTA provided key input that helped shape the bill, including having a three-year window to allow enough preparation, as well as clarifying that “zero periods” (optional before-school classes) could still be offered. Drawing on the experience and guidance from Start School Later, several of us in California formed a virtual team: Mariah Baughn and Beth McNeill in San Diego, me in the Los Angeles area, Irena Keller (who’d founded the statewide Start School Later chapter) in the San Francisco Bay Area, and Joy Wake, Sue Gylling and Anne Del Core in Sacramento. Another key player: Stanford sleep specialist Rafael Pelayo, who serves on Start School Later’s Board of Directors. Among our strategies:
Over a two-year period, the bill made it through numerous committees as well as floor votes on both the senate and assembly sides, eventually reaching Gov. Jerry Brown’s desk. All that was needed was his signature. Instead, he vetoed the bill, stating that he believed the decision should be made locally. Luckily, 2019 brought a new governor and another chance. On Feb. 15, 2019. Sen. Portantino brought the bill forth again, with two key amendments: an exemption for the state’s rural districts, and a start-time change for middle schools to “8 a.m. or later” rather than the “8:30 a.m. or later” change for high schools, which provided additional flexibility. This time around, the California PTA signed on as a cosponsor of the bill, which brought additional visibility and resources. Again, the bill made it through all of the previous steps. Gov. Gavin Newsom had thirty days to sign it into law – or veto it, as his predecessor had. There was a final blitz of letters to Newsom’s office. There were final appeals from supporters. And, we knew, there were similar activities opposing the bill underway. Finally, at about 8:30 p.m. on the very last day, Newsom signed it into law. What it finally took: Persistence, allies, communication, timing, flexibility This included:
Ultimately, what we accomplished in California drew on the body of research and many advocacy efforts to date, as well as the active support of countless researchers and the critical connections forged by Start School Later. May it continue to bolster similar efforts elsewhere. Adapted excerpt from The Sleep-Deprived Teen: Why Our Teens Are So Tired, And How Parents And Schools Can Help them Thrive, published by Mango Publishing Group, June 2022. Lisa L. Lewis is the author of The Sleep-Deprived Teen: Why Our Teenagers Are So Tired, And How Parents And Schools Can Help Them Thrive, described as “a call to action” by Arianna Huffington and “an urgent and timely read” by Daniel H. Pink. The book is an outgrowth of her previous work on the topic, including her role helping get California’s landmark law on healthy school start times passed. Lewis has written for The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Atlantic, and others. She’s a parent to a teen and a recent teen and lives in California. More info: www.lisallewis.com. An up-to-date, peer-reviewed summary of the research on teen sleep and school start times--plus expert recommendations about ways to build on that research and turn it into school policy. By Elinore Boeke  We’re excited to share a newly-published summary of last year’s Summit on Adolescent Sleep and School Start Times: Setting the Research Agenda for California and Beyond. The Summit was spearheaded by Start School Later/Healthy Hours, and hosted by the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine with support from the National Sleep Foundation and American Academy of Sleep Medicine. The peer-reviewed summary is now available online, and will be included in the February 2022 print edition of the Sleep Health Journal, published by the National Sleep Foundation. Using an extensive body of multidisciplinary research, the Summit established once and for all that most US schools should—and can—start later in the morning. It also identified ways future research questions might help turn this research into school policy — including ways to build community support for and awareness of healthy sleep while reducing disparities. PLEASE WIDELY SHARE THIS TERRIFIC SUMMARY OF THE EVIDENCE SUPPORTING HEALTHY SCHOOL START TIMES! We’ve created the shareable graphics you see in this blog with quotes from the paper for your use. (If we missed a useful quote, or if you need a different size, please reach out to Elinore Boeke, SSL communication director, at [email protected].  BACKGROUND The impetus for the Summit was California’s SB328. Passed and signed into law in 2019, this is the first U.S. statewide legislation ("healthy school start time" law) explicitly designed to protect adolescent sleep health by requiring most California public school districts to start no earlier than 8:00 a.m. for middle schools and 8:30 a.m. for high schools. The bill was co-sponsored by Start School Later and the California State PTA. California schools must implement the new law in place by July 1, 2022, or by the expiration date of any district or charter school’s bargaining agreement in effect on Jan. 1, 2020 Recognizing the unique opportunity presented by the the groundbreaking new law’s three-year implementation period, Start School Later brought together participants from a wide-range of academic backgrounds who organized a virtual summit to review current knowledge on adolescent sleep health and school start times and provide key research recommendations. The summit’s conclusions support the National Sleep Foundation’s new position statement recommending that middle and high schools start no earlier than 8:30 a.m. and calling on the federal government to provide and fund evidence-based resources and monitoring to help school communities delay bell times and reduce sleep health disparities associated with school start times.  Terra Ziporyn, PhD (aka Terra Ziporyn Snider), Executive Director and Co-Founder of Start School Later, is the lead author of the paper. Other members of the Start School Later Board of Directors, Advisory Board, and National Team are also authors on the paper: Judith Owens, MD; Amy Wolfson, PhD; Rafael Pelayo, MD; and Phyllis Payne, MPH. We encourage you to share this paper with school leadership, elected officials, community leaders, and others with an interest in improving student outcomes. MORE SHAREABLE IMAGES
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