Sleep and School Start Times Newswire

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Daily Pilot

Apodaca: Young minds need quality sleep. A later school start is helping.

Getting a good night’s sleep can help with many of the problems teens struggle with

massey.ac.nz

What would it take for schools to start later?

Could starting school later help teenagers get the sleep they need? New research is examining what would help or hinder schools introducing later start times for senior secondary students in Aotearoa New Zealand.

   I witnessed this firsthand when my two sons were students in Newport-Mesa Unified schools. They each, during their final two years of high school, started school at 6:55 a.m....Most nights they got far less than the eight to 10 hours of sleep recommended for teenagers. Indeed, their sleep deprivation was chronic, and I often worried it would break them."

Dr Alansari says the research reinforces that there is no single approach that will work for every school.
"Later school starts are not simply a scheduling change. They depend on how school systems, support services and student wellbeing are balanced within each school context."
The research is particularly relevant to Aotearoa New Zealand because much of the existing evidence on later school starts comes from the United States (US).

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   ​A school district cannot change adolescent circadian biology to accommodate a bus schedule. But it can design a bus schedule that takes adolescent biology into account. As Spokane builds a new transportation system, we have an opportunity to build it around what we know about children and adolescents. We should take this opportunity

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This new study confirms what we've been saying: it's going to take more than individual changes to improve adolescent sleep. These will have limited efficacy unless we also make some organizational and policy changes, including school hours that give students a CHANCE to get healthy sleep.