What if this pandemic is not a disaster for students but an opportunity to learn more in a better (and healthier) way?

by Roger Pinholster and Kimberly Damron

The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically changed our lives in unanticipated ways. We have had to learn to value workers who are often taken for granted, change the way we relate to others, and rely on technology to function and maintain connection in our lives more than ever.

As part of this change, we have also had to quickly adapt to a new way of educating our children and develop a new appreciation for teachers and the vital role they play in learning. This fall the country will almost certainly open up and expect students to return to school. At the same time, parents, schools, and communities can anticipate:

1. Some social distancing will be required due to still having COVID-19 infections during the normal cold and flu season. We may have a few COVID treatments but no vaccine.​
2. States and school boards will not be providing additional funding for schools to operate--maybe less.
3. A second wave of the virus may spike if appropriate measures are not maintained while structured reopening of the states occurs.  This second wave may hit during flu season.

New Ways to Teach, Learn, and Schedule Schools
We need to see this not as a disaster for students, but as an opportunity for students to learn more in a better way. This will be a chance to change our approach to teaching and learning as well as how school is scheduled. Schools are already planning BUT -- WHAT IF...

• Kids only came to brick and mortar schools two days per week where they could have socialization and collaborative experiences with teachers and other students?
• Kids learned at home three days per week, similar to how they are functioning right now?

Fourteen hours of instruction at school and 15 hours of virtual/online instruction at home=29 hours per week. About the same as they are engaged in now (25 hrs) if they do some “homework.” 

​Students with disabilities requiring more structure might come to brick and mortar schools four days a week and stay home on Fridays to learn online since their class sizes leave room for distancing now, especially if we have some empty regular classrooms. ​

Teachers might be assigned a slightly larger number of students and class sizes but close to the same, maybe 10 percent more to save teacher units for a different team member. Except, instead of 22-28 students seated in the class at one time, the teachers could work with 11 to 14 students live and in person (instruction wouldn't change until you got below 15 according to research).

Imagine the attention each student could get, the individual feedback on problems/labs, the chance to safely ask questions, the  higher-order discussions you could have, and the amazing learning that could happen.

A Co-Teaching Model
The academic teachers’ total class sizes might be a little larger because some current teachers would need to evolve into a different way of teaching and learning because they are at risk. Maybe 10-15 percent of current classroom teachers and staff might be too vulnerable to teach students live in the classroom until there is a vaccine in a couple of years. Possibilities could be that they are over 60 years living, are youthful but have underlying health issues, have already worked as teachers in the virtual arena, etc.

These teachers, non-classroom teachers, and volunteer retired teachers would become co-teachers.  They would share students with the teachers that are providing direct instruction in the classroom.

​Schools might need to exchange teachers for a year to match needed certifications. They could be trained this summer to teach and manage the virtual and online learning tools for their assigned grades and or subjects. An advantage would be that some will have already been doing this work for a semester and will have familiarity with it.  They might work from home four days per week and come to school on Friday for a half day to coordinate at a safe distance with their teams and partner teachers--no faculty meetings allowed (smile). 

If more frequent coordination is needed, meetings could be done virtually from home (as is being done now for so many teams). On-line teachers might also teach from school in special areas of safety that can be established at the actual school locations.

​Combined Classroom and Distance Learning
Three days a week students would be at home or at very small community centers involved in distance learning. School technology folks would be needed to support the co-teachers and their teams to manage this learning and keep students on track.

This groundbreaking law affirms the moral imperative for states to step in when local communities cannot protect children’s safety, health, and basic rights.​
by Terra Ziporyn Snider

In 2012 I wrote a commentary in Education Week (Push Back High School Start Times) arguing that ensuring safe, healthy school start times requires recognizing sleep and school hours as public health issues. Even back then the science was clear: requiring adolescents to be in class too early in the morning is unhealthy, unsafe, and counterproductive. The problem districts had ensuring healthy bell times wasn’t the science: it was the politics.

​Since then, there has been increasing recognition both about the strength of the science and the problems of leaving public health matters in the hands of individual school districts, culminating in California’s new “start school later” law. This law, which requires most state middle and high schools to adopt minimum opening times (8 a.m. for middle schools, 8:30 a.m. for high schools), is based on an American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) policy statement recommending that middle and high schools start no earlier than 8:30 a.m. to allow growing brains and bodies an opportunity to get enough sleep at the times they most need it.

Many other health and education organizations—including the American Medical Association, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, American Academy of Sleep Medicine, Society for Behavioral Medicine, National PTA, and National Education Association—have subsequently issued or endorsed the same recommendation.
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As Settled As Science Gets
Despite some media claims to the contrary, the science grounding this law is as settled as science gets. A large, broad, and consistent body of evidence shows that most adolescents cannot get healthy sleep if they are forced to be in school too early in the morning—and that returning to developmentally appropriate bell times is a proven countermeasure to adolescent sleep deficiency. 

Organizations such as the AAP and AMA do not issue policy statements lightly, and their recommendations are a testament to the strength of this research. In fact, in response to legislative analysis casting doubt on the strength of the science, over 120 research, health, and public policy experts immediately signed a consensus letter confirming that the "volume, breadth, consistency and strength of the peer-reviewed scientific research supporting this legislation are unequivocal, and they exceed the high standards for public health and education policy."

​Last October a Pennsylvania Joint State Government Commission Report reached similar conclusions, stating that their recommendation for secondary schools to start at 8:30 a.m. or later “is also that of medical organizations and supported by scientific evidence.” The report adds that evidence from districts in Pennsylvania and around the nation that have successfully delayed bell times obviates the need for a pilot proof-of-concept program. In addition, it provides specific, evidence-based guidance to help communities use the opportunity provided by developmentally appropriate bell times most effectively. 

​These change-management practices include providing sleep education in school health curricula, raising awareness about the benefits of later start times, and engaging authentically with community stakeholders.

Costs of Inertia
Much of the media coverage of California’s new law highlights speculation about ways in which changing bell times might be “disruptive” to districts and communities. Such speculation misses the point that such disruption—even if and when it occurs—is often overestimated, temporary at worst, and ultimately minor compared to the benefits received. 

Yes, all change comes with challenges and even costs, but the clear lesson from the many communities that have delayed bell times successfully is that when there's political will to change, stakeholders can and do collaborate iteratively to find creative solutions to both perceived and real logistical challenges. When school leaders embrace change and work with community stakeholders to develop a culture of healthy sleep, the benefits from later school start times are even greater.

​Speculations about what “might” happen if bell times change also overlook the very real costs of not changing. Human nature makes us all unconsciously value the way we do things now over the value of change (“status quo bias”). It also makes us discount or overlook existing problems that come from inaction compared to problems that might come from taking action (“omission bias”). Thus, when we talk about later start times possibly “not working” we forget what’s not working right now.

​Our tendency to overestimate costs of change while overlooking the costs of not changing helps explain why most districts have struggled to turn established science into school policy. We forget the many children and families whose mental and physical health, safety, and school performance are suffering because we force growing children to deprive themselves of sleep to attend class. We forget the challenges to working families with current school hours, which often differ drastically from elementary to middle to high school—and that often change as children move through the school system. 

We also forget that since work and school hours are not coordinated, and that for every family that likes current hours is another struggling with them. We forget that school start times were set, and continue to be set, for all kinds of reasons, but convenience of families and even school employees was never one of them.

Empowering School Districts
California’s Governor Newsom has provided a wise and courageous solution to this decades-long impasse by setting minimum standards for how early schools can start classes, finally stopping the process of passing the buck for a practice causing serious and unnecessary harm. This groundbreaking law also changes the landscape for communities across the nation grappling with similar challenges by establishing the moral imperative of states to step in when local communities cannot protect children’s safety, health, and basic rights.
​
By removing the greatest roadblock to change—the fear of community pushback and political repercussions of that pushback—California’s new law empowers local districts to prioritize student health and safety when they set schedules. The hope now is that instead of speculating about what might go wrong, districts use the many experience-based resources available to them to take advantage of this opportunity to address a profound and unnecessary harm. 


​

by Debbie Owensby Moore

As ones’ expertise in this fact-based advocacy develops, we ultimately learn that the importance of adolescent sleep is bigger than our family’s needs or our school district, but a national health crisis affecting a generation of teens.

Some are successful in affecting local change, other are not. But every email, letter, or presentation contributes to an awareness of the importance of setting school hours conducive to children’s needs. It is a long journey: a marathon, not a sprint. Truth is on our side.
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So take up the mantle, lead the charge, and embrace your motherhood advocacy!


Debbie Owensby Moore currently leads Start School Later Texas and for many years served as Start School Later's National Chapter Director. Follow her on Twitter at @DebbieOMoore.

by Phyllis Payne, Sandy Evans, and Judith A. Owens

A recent major newspaper published a story that sensationalized shifting bell times and pitted one child in a family against another—implying that older children are somehow undeserving of sleep or our sympathy while ignoring the fact that the middle school sibling would herself benefit from the overall schedule change once she reaches high school. In particular, the reporter criticized “flipping” the bell times. ​

​The “flip” is only one of many approaches schools use to provide healthy schedules. Each community can and usually does explore a number of options when looking for that “Goldilocks solution” to balance the political resistance to change against the biological needs of the students.
​
Start School Later’s position is to encourage districts to schedule all children to start school after 8 a.m., our leadership also recognizes that we don’t want the perfect to be the enemy of the good. None of our children should be at the bus stop before dawn.

By Morgan Lloyd

Did you ever wonder why some people bounce out of bed bright-eyed and bushy-tailed when their 6:30 a.m. alarm goes off, while others find it torturous to get up that early? Some people seem to naturally be “larks” or “owls” (or somewhere in between) and can’t do much about it. For decades, the medical community has studied why this lark versus owl difference occurs in adults.  Only recently have we come to understand how it manifests in adolescents.
 
Scientific studies reveal an internal clock in our brains that counts time and then “orders” various biological changes to occur throughout the day. For example, at night, our brain’s internal clock lowers our body temperature about 2°F and slows down our heart rate, while increasing tissue-repair and energy storage activities. 

​In some of us, this body temperature drops early in the evening and rises again around 6 a.m., whereas  in others it stays high longer and doesn’t significantly rise again until 8-9 a.m. Similarly, our body’s release of the hormone melatonin, which is critical for our feelings of sleepiness, starts later in the evening—and lasts later into the morning—in some people than others. The increasing temperature and dropping melatonin levels we experience in the morning are what makes us wake up and feel alert. Those whose body temperature increases and melatonin drops early in the morning are “larks,” and those who shift later are “owls”. Amazingly, neuroscientists have uncovered the exact molecular basis for this difference, and it all revolves around how accurately our "brain-clocks" count time. Just like some people are tall and some are short, some people’s clocks run faster and some slower.

Why does all this matter for teenagers and getting up for school?
​

By Mike Archer, School Bus Consultant

TransPar Group 

The debate over later school start times is best characterized as one where opposing groups both believe they have the community's best interest in mind, despite being on opposite sides of the same issue. We often talk past each other in the interest of supporting our particular point of view while failing to recognize the common interest in what we are trying to achieve. Transportation, or more specifically the cost of transportation, is one of the more contentious issues in this debate.

​So, the question is, how do we design a process for acknowledging, and then managing the complexities of the transportation question without losing perspective on the common educational goals underlying the proposed change? We believe the answer lies in a diagnostic process that is focused on identifying actual constraints and then evaluating key variables in a systematic methodology. Only in this way can all stakeholders see their concerns being identified, considered, and balanced with others to determine the best possible result for the community.

Trading up, trading down, and trading off
​School start time discussions are contentious because resources are limited. It is rarely possible to achieve everything that disparate stakeholders want. Consequently, school districts must balance the educational benefits identified in the sleep research with the possible transportation cost and service changes that may be required to support the change. The analysis necessary to properly evaluate these tradeoffs must begin with ensuring that the analyst is unbiased as to the issue itself. Ensuring analytical neutrality prevents any confirmation bias from being injected into the identification and evaluation of options, of which there are always many.
 
The considerations that go into any transportation network design are numerous, interrelated, and complicated. The analysis must consider, and stakeholders must understand, the difference between fixed constraints and changeable variables. This designation is of vital importance to the analysis for two reasons: ​

As a former travel baseball coach and a father of a high school and college sports player, I had the opportunity to speak with, and listen to, many coaches over many years of time on ballfields, football fields, and basketball courts throughout the East Coast. While most coaches are dedicated to the health and safety of their teams, there is an unfortunate disconnect from what coaches say to kids about athletic achievement, safety and the inherent life lessons learned playing a sport, and the life-altering impact of early start times on their school team players.

I do not fault the coaches for this disconnect, the idea of sleep being necessary and meaningful is lost on so many people. Sleep is often treated as loose change! Whatever time is left for sleep is what is devoted to sleep. This type of thinking can lead to dire consequences for a hard working athlete in training.  Especially when that schedule requires an ill-fitting early rise time for school. Many coaches are great with game strategies but I hardly expect them to be experts about teenage sleep patterns and their circadian rhythms! Hopefully, as this issue gathers more coverage, they will become convinced (as many other coaches have) that sleep really is a matter of athletic success. I am certain that no coach wants to see a player harmed on the field or from falling asleep while driving. I am sure that they will pay heed to studies that show an increase in drug and alcohol use from athletes that are sleep deprived. Sleep should be treated as the foundation of an athlete’s very busy day.
​
So let’s look at the 7 most common statements coaches emphasize to parents and players and compare them with the arguments I often hear against later school start times. By ignoring teen circadian sleep needs, these well-meaning coaches may be, unwittingly, putting their players in harm’s way.
'1. “More important than the results of the game is our ability to develop healthy and successful young men and women in the game of life.”
Early start times don’t allow sufficient recovery time for athletes who have worked out strenuously.  This can lead to injury and poor health. According to one 2014 national study, athletes that slept less than 6 hours per night were injured at a rate of 68% above those who slept more each night!  It is hard to be successful when you are “running on empty” as many of these high school players are. We know that insufficient sleep disrupts growth hormones and impairs testosterone production, yet many high school athletes are playing with lower testosterone levels that are on par with a much older player.

2. “We are teaching these kids life skills that will help them long after their playing career is over.”  
According to this March 2017 study from Penn State, Sleep is as important to health as diet and exercise. Neglecting to teach good sleep hygiene in this life skill equation creates bad habits that become harder to break as we get older, and lead to a myriad of chronic health problems such as diabetes, obesity, or abuse of medications. By discounting early start times, we are silently approving of sleep deprivation behaviors that lead to bad and impaired judgment.

3. “We are always looking out for the health and wellbeing of our players.  We even do preseason testing and we call off practices when the weather is too hot.” 
We really are not doing the above if we are not championing reasonable and healthy start times for student athletes. Last year I did a review of the research. Even some of the testing being done, such as baseline concussion testing, may be inaccurate if the baseline testing is done on sleep-deprived students. Just as we monitor how heat and extreme temperature impact our players, we also need to monitor sleep and recovery every practice.

4. “We use cutting edge tools and strategies to ensure we are best prepared for our games.”
Is this true when it comes to supporting an athlete’s sleep?  As a coach, are you asking your players on a daily basis how much sleep they had?  Professional teams (and many colleges) do this regularly and adjust their practices accordingly.Why do the professionals (and many colleges!) do this? Why do they incur the wrath of their TV sponsors and networks when they sit out their stars? Because the science is overwhelming that proper rest improves performance and recovery.

In basketball, shooting percentages increase, fouls and turnovers decrease, and players are not experiencing the same injury frequency if rested. In baseball, a recent study from Stanford University  showed that even one hour of extra sleep each night improved the focus and reaction time by 13 percent for baseball players who have to quickly decide whether to swing at a pitch or not.

5. “We don’t want to hurt a player so we are fully behind the implementation of anything that helps the player: such as a pitch count and proper rest between pitching.”
As important as the above thought process is, if coaches truly want to protect not only a pitcher’s arm, but also their entire mental and physical well being, they should get behind a start school later effort. Adequate sleep affords a level of protection and recovery far above just looking out for a sore arm or a “dead arm” period.  We also should explain what proper rest means to players.

Many colleges are left with this task as their high school coaches never addressed sleep as an important and necessary element of athletics and time management. One college program that addresses sleep with their athletes is the University of St. Thomas. In a recent blog on their website about their sleep program for athletes it was mentioned that “when the coaches –see how many detailed and specific questions the players have about sleep, and they see how far off their own thinking has been about sleep, it’s pretty interesting.” Sleep is now a common lecture on college sports campuses and players who devote over 50 hours to their sport each week are definitely appreciative of any suggestions to protect their minds and bodies from the rigors of sports and academic.  Fortunately for college athletes, they often get to select their own class schedules so they can get some additional recovery time.

6. “Playing sports is a great vehicle for keeping kids off the streets and from the lure of drugs and alcohol.”
Yes, but not if we don’t focus on sleep. Sleep deprivation leads many athletes to self-medicate with sleep aids and fatigue can lead to poor judgment and increased drug and alcohol usage.  A recent preliminary study presented at the American Academy of Sleep Medicine sleep conference in Boston indicates that sleep disturbances can predict substance abuse among college athletes. The results show that student athletes who haven’t worked out sleep issues were 151 percent more likely to use cigarettes, 36 percent more likely to use alcohol, and 66 percent more likely to smoke marijuana.

7. “As a coach, I need to look at the situation and put my players in the best possible position to succeed.”
I hope after reading this blog coaches are at least open to the idea of exploring how starting school later can make for a better player. Sleep is a controllable advantage that puts players not only in a position to win the games on the field, but to be winners as they move on to college and beyond.  Long after the scores are forgotten, and the trophies are boxed, there will be athletes that think of how truly cutting edge their coach was and how he or she was willing to work through the obstacles to help them become healthy, productive, and successful citizens. Let’s put true meaning to the words we speak and let’s see what we can do together to beat the logistical opponents that stand in the way of our teams success. Many have already made the switch and are happy with the results. Some have even gone on to win championships after school start time changes that allowed players more sleep and recovery.

Sleep Well--Compete Best! ​