SB 328 FAQs - Healthy Start Times for High School and Middle School Students

Why limit how early middle and high school classes can start?

• After decades of compelling scientific research, we now know that early school start times pose serious health and safety risks to teenage children.
• At puberty, kids’ body clocks shift. This circadian rhythm shift makes it harder for them to fall asleep until later at night (for teens, closer to 11 p.m.) and leads to them sleeping later in the morning. Waking a 16-year-old at 6:30 a.m. is the equivalent of waking a 40-year-old at 4:30 a.m.
• Teens require 8.5-9.5 hours of sleep per night. When schools start too early in the morning, adolescents wind up sleep-deprived.
• As a result, they’re more at risk for depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, obesity and substance use, as well as serious health conditions later in life. They’re also at risk for drowsy-driving crashes.

• At school, too-early start times result in more absences and tardies, lower test scores and graduation rates, and even increased rates of student-athlete injuries.
• Delaying start times (ideally to 8:30 a.m. or later) has been identified as a key factor to address adolescent sleep deprivation and its associated health and public-safety risks. It’s recommended by the CDC, American Academy of Pediatrics, American Medical Association and American Psychological Association, among others.
• Later start times are also seen as an equity issue, given that students from lower socioeconomic status families get less sleep than their counterparts. This widens current academic gaps and future opportunity gaps.
• Studies have shown that when start times are moved later, kids with the lowest scores show the biggest increases.

 
What are the mental health implications?
There is a proven link between sleep deprivation, school start times and teen hopelessness and suicidal ideation.

• The most recent California Healthy Kids Survey found that 19% of 9th-graders and 19% of 11th-graders had considered suicide within the past year. Additionally, 26% of 7th-graders, 32% of 9th-graders and 34% of 11th-graders felt chronically sad or hopeless.
• For each hour less of sleep among adolescents studied in the Fairfax County, Va., Youth Survey, feelings of being sad or hopeless increased by 38% and the odds of seriously considering suicide increased 42%. It was also associated with 58% greater odds of attempted suicide.

 
How do start times affect students from lower socioeconomic status families?

•  Later start times are seen as an equity issue, given that research shows that children from lower socioeconomic status families get less sleep than their counterparts. This serves to widen both current academic gaps and future opportunity gaps.
• Students from low-income families may not have a parent available to drive them to school, making them dependent on public transportation or responsible for walking or riding their bikes to school. Doing so may result in longer travel times, which means they may be waking even earlier than their counterparts and therefore may be even more sleep deprived (and at increased risk if they’re leaving the house while it’s still dark).

 
How do start times affect academic success?
Repeated studies have shown that when the school day starts later, teens get more sleep, and both class grades and standardized test scores go up. Here are some examples:

• A recent study found that after start times were moved to 8:30 a.m. or later, the average graduation rate increased from 79 percent to 88 percent. This study included 30,000 high-school students in 29 schools in 7 states. (Source: article in Sleep Health, journal of the National Sleep Foundation, April 2017)
• This same study found that the average attendance rate increased from 90% to 94%
• An economist’s study of middle-school students in Wake County, N.C. found that a one-hour delay in start time increased math test scores by 3.3 percentile points and reading test scores by 3.7 points. Perhaps even more striking, the lowest-scoring students showed the biggest jumps. (Source: article in Economics of Education Review, Dec. 2012)
• A one-hour delay in start times produces the same academic benefit as being in a class with one-third fewer students or with a teacher whose performance is one standard deviation higher. “As someone who has studied educational interventions, I truly believe that this is the single easiest and least expensive way to improve student outcomes,” says the study’s author. (Source: Teny M. Shapiro, Santa Clara University economist)

 
How will this affect working parents?

• For just about every working family who will find a new bell schedule convenient, there is another that will find it inconvenient. It is literally impossible for a district to schedule the operating hours of all of its schools – kindergarten, grade school, middle school, and high school – at times that are aligned with all the varying work schedules of all parents. SB 328 won't change that. For example, current early start times are not convenient for many parents whose jobs keep them (and often their children) up later at night, like those in retail, restaurants, entertainment, public safety, or those who work two jobs. 
• Many families also already face change when their kids move from elementary to middle school or from middle to high school, which may have different schedules.
• There are ways that schools can help working families, such as opening the cafeteria or library, providing enrichment opportunities, allowing more kids to eat breakfast at school, and facilitating car pooling. However, just because some parents may be unable to provide healthy sleep hours for their teens does not mean that school district policy should prevent all of their teen students from getting the amount of sleep doctors say they need to be healthy and safe. 
• Finally, within the same family, work schedules, school schedules, and carpool opportunities frequently change. In fact, according to the Bureau of Labor statistics, people change jobs on average every 4 years.  Commitment to children's health and safety, however, is a constant and should be the foundation upon which school decisions are made.

 
How will this affect kids who get themselves to school?

• By high school, many students are responsible for getting themselves to school. Having new, sleep-deprived drivers on the road is a public safety issue: teens and young adults are involved in more than half of all drowsy driving crashes each year!
• Students who walk, bike or take the bus to school may currently be doing so while it is still dark, putting them at risk.

How will sports be affected?

• Districts around the country that have made the change to date have successfully worked with other schools to adjust game times accordingly. Under SB 328, all schools would make the start time shift, making game time shifts even easier.      
• Studies show that teen athletes who get 8 or more hours of sleep per night are 68% less likely to get injured. This in turn will result in less missed playing time (as well as reduced medical costs for students and their families).
• Because later start times have been shown to improve grades, academically at-risk athletes will be more likely to maintain their sports eligibility.

 
What about kids who work?

• Teenagers who work long hours to help support their families are particularly hurt when school starts too early in the morning. It’s not unusual for these students to have to work until 10 or 11 p.m., which makes it difficult for them to get enough sleep if they have to wake at 5 or 6 a.m. to get to school on time. 
• Additionally, many employers who hire high-school students generally don’t require the additional staffing until 4 p.m. or later, as opposed to in the early afternoon hours.

 
Don’t early start times prepare teens for the real world? 

• Adolescence is a time of rapid growth and change that requires more sleep than adulthood does. While adults need at least 7 hours of sleep per night, teens need 8.5 to 9.5 hours.
• Moreover, the circadian rhythm shift that takes place during adolescence makes it harder for teens to fall asleep until close to 11 p.m. When combined with too-early start times, the result is sleep deprivation. This shift also means that waking a teen at 6:30 a.m. can be seen as the equivalent of waking a 40-year-old at 4:30 a.m.
• Adolescence is a time of rapid brain development as well as a surge in hormones and emotions. At the same time, adolescents often have impaired judgment and high levels of academic stress. This is a period when they need protection and support, not a boot camp for adult life.
• Sleep-deprived teens are also at increased risk for depression, suicide, risk-taking behaviors and unintentional injuries and even death. For more information, please refer to “What are the mental health implications?”
• Early start times were not always the case. According to the National Center for Health Research, in the 1950s and 1960s, most schools started between 8:30 and 9 a.m.
• Post-high school start times vary. College courses generally do not require students to be in their seats every morning at 7:30 a.m. or even earlier. The work world includes a wide array of job options and work schedules and a corresponding array of start times.

 
If kids know they can sleep later, won't they just stay up later?
In fact, studies show that starting school later results in more sleep for teens. For example, one study of 9,000 students in 8 public high schools in 3 states found that the number of students who get 8 or more hours of sleep on school nights increased as the school start time moved later, showing that teens generally didn’t move their bedtimes later because their start times had changed.
 
Don't social media, technology, and screen time contribute to sleep deprivation?

• Although late night screen time should be discouraged, even teens with impeccable “sleep hygiene” have circadian rhythms that make it difficult for them to get enough sleep if school starts too early in the morning. The late-hour melatonin release that occurs during adolescence means that teens are biologically unable to fall asleep until close to 11 p.m.
• This circadian rhythm shift is seen across cultures. In Australia, for example (where students have similar access to technology), school start time was found to have the biggest impact on sleep, with Australian students (whose schools started later) receiving more sleep than their U.S. counterparts. (Source: article in Health Education & Behavior, June 2013)

• Recent research has shown that when schools moved their start times later, both students who use light-emitting devices (i.e., smart phones and computers) in bed before falling asleep and those who didn't showed similar increases in total sleep time. This suggests that electronic use at bedtime does not appear to alter the potential beneficial impacts on sleep of a delay in school start time. (Source: Forthcoming study, Dr. Judith Owens)
• Finally, it’s important to note that while other factors such as excessive screen time use can impact sleep, school start times remain the only policy-level issue that’s been identified as directly contributing to the issue of teen sleep deprivation. As with other public-health issues, addressing individual factors alone isn’t enough.

 
What about districts that are already high performing?

• High-performing students aren’t immune from the health risks associated with sleep deprivation, including depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, obesity and substance use, as well as serious health conditions later in life. They’re also at risk for drowsy-driving crashes.
• For more information, please refer to “What are the mental health implications?”

 
What about zero period?

• Zero period is not included in SB 328. This means that schools may continue to offer zero-period classes.
• Given that the standard school day (Periods 1 on) would now start at 8:30 a.m. or later, zero period would also start at a correspondingly later time – so these students would also start their days later and be able to get more sleep.
• In many cases, zero periods are used to offer enrichment opportunities such as art or music, which have been shown to be beneficial for critical thinking, brain development, and academic success.. However, with the current school schedules, these “zero period” options may begin as early as 6:30 a.m.! With a later school day, zero period would also start later. For children for whom private lessons aren’t an option due to family finances, these classes provide enrichment opportunities they wouldn’t have otherwise.

 
If school starts later, what time will it get out?
When schools shift their start times, their end times usually also (but not necessarily) shift accordingly. The exact time may vary, as schools have some flexibility in their schedules and school calendars and are expected to make reasonable scheduling adjustments. Many schools that currently have healthy start times of 8:30 a.m. or later end at 3:15 to 3:20 p.m.
 
Why should the state legislature get involved?

• Healthy start times are a public health issue. The state has a compelling interest in protecting the health and safety of ours state’s children; yet currently, millions of California’s students are forced by local school mandate to wake at a time that has been proven to be unhealthy and unsafe. SB 328 will update the California Education Code to prohibit middle and high schools from starting before 8:30 a.m.
• Just as state policy now protects children from lead paint, smoking and other health risks, it should protect them from the harmful health and safety effects of too-early start times as well.
• Establishing a “no earlier than” start time is no different than setting a minimum number of hours per day of classroom time or a minimum number of instructional hours.
• Start times of 8:30 a.m. or later have been proven to increase test scores and graduation rates, which are both regularly assessed by the state’s Dept of Education to measure educational effectiveness.

 
What about local control and collective bargaining?

• It is consistent with the concept of local control for state government to take responsibility for public health matters. Our state’s approximately 1,000 individual school boards are not tasked with or prepared to make public health policy.
• When it comes to education matters, California has a long history of providing parameters within which school districts may operate. The Education Code sets minimum number of school days, instructional minutes, physical education minutes, etc. And under the new Local Control Funding Formula, school districts are still regulated by the Education Code. Even under the new Local Control Accountability Plans, schools are not accountable for improving outcomes of student physical or mental health. SB 328 will remedy this responsibility gap and our children's health will no longer fall between the cracks.
• Under SB 328, school districts will continue to control their class schedules within the minimum healthy parameters in order to ensure that California kids’ public health is not unintentionally harmed in the pursuit of local administrative interests.
• While contracts may need to be re-negotiated, it’s important to note that contracts are regularly re-negotiated for myriad reasons.

 
When would this go into effect?  This change would go into effect in 2022  to allow for adjustments that may need to be made.

Which schools are included? SB 328 would apply to California’s public middle and high schools. Rural districts are exempted. 
 
What about schools that can’t make the change? The bill includes a provision that allows the governing board of a rural school district to request a waiver from the State Board of Education to delay implementation if it demonstrates a verifiable, significant economic hardship that would result. The waiver may be granted for two years, and upon approval by the State Board of Education, may be extended for up to two additional years.
 
 
Updated October 14, 2019. For more information: www.startschoollater.net/ca---statewide.html