According to Stanford Medical Children Health teenagers in high school do not get the right amount of sleep. 70% of students get under the healthy and recommended sleep amount.
This raises the question: should Parkway South start later?
“I like starting early. I hate it, but I like being done by 2:30,” said social studies teacher Carrie Steele.
Many students and teachers might agree with Steele. On one hand, students want school to start later so they can get more sleep, but teachers have a job to get done. They want to have time after school.
School start times have been talked about for many years, but for many schools later starting times just aren’t perfect especially for people with sports or work after school.
“School starting at a later time would be helpful because, by the time I get to school, I am very tired, and it’s hard to give my best effort,” junior Cole Drinkard said.
Actually, in California, there is a law that says no high school can start before 8:30 a.m.
“School starting at a later time would be helpful because I have to wake up very early at 6:00 and I have to go do work at South Tech,” junior Leo Shafer said.
Many students think that they are getting a lack of sleep and by the time they get to school, it’s harder to put effort into their classes. According to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, teenagers in high school should be getting 8-10 hours of sleep. If South students go to sleep at about 11 p.m. and get up for school at 6 a.m., that is only 7 hours of sleep.
“If school started at 8:30 or 9:00 I would get a lot more sleep and would have more time to get ready in the morning instead of going straight to school,” Shafer said.
Many students said they would like an extra hour or two in the morning before they have to wake up but what many don’t realize is that if we start earlier we end later. This can be very troubling for athletes like Drinkard or people who have jobs after school.
“I do cross country. If school started later I would have more time to get ready. Because by the time school is over I am exhausted at cross country practice,” Drinkard said.
Morning practice has already been done multiple years in Parkway South for days when it is way too hot after school or for other reasons. Some sports have already put it into their weekly schedule to have a morning practice every week.
“I think that if school started later and my practice switched to morning practice I would be a lot less tired for school and later in the day,” Drinkard said
Drinkard said he thinks that morning practice isn’t bad because then he gets more time after school. School athletes can do morning practice and still have more time in the morning, but they don’t have to do practice at the end of the school day when they’re tired.
So far, Parkway South has not yet made any remark about possibly changing the school starting time. In the U.S., on average, schools start at 8:03 a.m. compared to Parkway South’s 7:35 a.m. So, for now, Parkway South is going to remain at the 7:35 start time, and hopefully, students will be able to handle it.
“I think it’s a mental thing also, getting up so early, driving in when it’s dark,” Steele said.
