Aug. 25, 2014 12:01 a.m. ET
High Schools, Middle Schools Should Begin Day No Earlier Than 8:30 a.m., American Academy of Pediatrics Says
A growing amount of research finds that teenagers are wired to sleep later and can benefit from school days that start later. WSJ's Sumathi Reddy and Dr. Mary Carskadon, a psychiatry professor at Brown University, join Lunch Break with Tanya Rivero. Photo: Getty
High schools and middle schools should begin the day no earlier than 8:30 a.m. to help teenagers get more sleep, the American Academy of Pediatrics said Monday in its first policy statement on the issue.
Research indicates that later school start times result in improved physical and mental health and, in some cases, better student performance, according to the guidelines. One recent study found a 70% drop in car crashes involving teen drivers after an 80-minute delay in the start time at one high school.
"Delaying school start times has a whole host of benefits that are well documented at this point," said Judith Owens, lead author of the guidelines and director of sleep medicine at Children's National Medical Center in Washington, D.C.
Biological changes associated with puberty result in a shift in circadian rhythms, causing adolescents to get tired later at night, sleep experts say. The changes can start in middle school and can shift a child's bedtime by as much as two hours. Exacerbating that physiological reality is teenagers' tendency to study late at night and to use electronics close to bedtime, when blue-light exposure can further delay sleep.
Students at Park High School in Cottage Grove, Minn., headed to their first classes of the day at 8:35 a.m. in March. The school district pushed back high-school start times five years ago, yielding benefits including higher standardized math test scores and attendance gains that were confirmed by a University of Minnesota study in March. ZUMAPRESS.com
"Circadian rhythms dictate that most teenagers can't fall asleep much before 11 p.m.," Dr. Owens said. "And if they need 8½ to 9½ hours of sleep—do the math. They are best suited to wake up around 8 a.m."
Yet the average start time for public high schools is 7:59 a.m., according to 2011-12 U.S. Department of Education statistics, the most recent available. An estimated 42.5% of public high schools start the day before 8 a.m., while only about 15% start at 8:30 a.m. or later.
Advocates hope the guidelines will provide momentum for organizations across the country working to delay school start times. The issue is often contentious because of concerns about transportation costs due to changing bus schedules, and the effect on time and space for extracurricular activities, particularly athletics.
"To draw a line in the sand and to say what time school should or shouldn't start, that's a huge statement that will ultimately flip this into a public-health issue instead of a negotiable school budget item," said Terra Ziporyn Snider, executive director of Start School Later, a nonprofit based in Annapolis, Md., that advocates for later school start times.
High schools in places including Columbia, Mo., and Glens Falls, N.Y., have delayed the start of the school day. While there is no official tally, Dr. Owens said an unofficial count found about 70 districts with a total of about 1,000 schools have made the move to a later school day. Still, other schools maintain earlier start times, such as Cheyenne High School in North Las Vegas, Nev., which starts as early as 6:50 a.m.
The Fairfax County School Board in Virginia, near Washington, is slated to vote in October on delaying its 7:20 a.m. start time, after studying the issue for more than a decade. The school district, one of the country's largest, hired Children's National Medical Center to consult on options for delaying the start of the high-school day to 8 a.m. or later.
Experts point to research findings that delays in start times of as little as 25 minutes can lead to measurable changes. Some studies have found improvements in hours slept, daytime sleepiness, attendance, academic performance and mood, and decreases in driving accidents and risky behaviors, experts say. Especially compelling, experts say, is evidence that delaying school start times reduces the number of driving accidents involving teen drivers.
In a March study funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, researchers at the University of Minnesota found a 65%-to-70% decrease in vehicle crashes among 16- to 18-year-olds in two high schools, in Wyoming and Minnesota, excluding crashes caused by unrelated factors, such as intoxication.
The study looked at more than 9,000 high-school students in five districts in Wyoming, Minnesota and Colorado that had delayed school start times to the 8 a.m.-to-8:55 a.m. window. The researchers compared attendance records, academic performance, mental health and car-crash rates before and after the changes to start times.
"The later the start time, the more that we had positive outcomes in all measures," said Kyla Wahlstrom, director of the Center for Applied Research and Educational Improvement at the University of Minnesota and the study's lead researcher. "There were cumulative benefits based on the later start."
Dr. Wahlstrom said her research and other studies by the CDC have found eight hours of sleep appears to be the dividing line in terms of risky behaviors by teens. Getting less than eight hours increases the risk of taking drugs or alcohol, for example.
Surveys show that teenagers are chronically sleep deprived. A 2006 study by the National Sleep Foundation, a nonprofit, found 87% of high-school students got less than the recommended 8½ to 9½ hours of sleep on school nights, and 28% of students reported falling asleep in school.
Ameen Al-Dalli, 16 years old, who will begin his junior year at Langley High School in Fairfax County in September, said he has fallen asleep in class. Last year, his Advanced Placement world history teacher took a picture of him dozing in class and posted it on Instagram. "A lot of kids fall asleep during class," he said. "It's not intentional."
The high-performing honors student said he has to get up at 5:30 a.m. and be at the bus stop at 6:20 to get to school for the 7:20 start time. He says just getting up requires the use of two alarm clocks—one near the bed and one further away, with his mother, Zeena Aljibury, as a backup.
Ameen said he aims for a bedtime of 11:30 p.m. but if he has a big test or a paper he might not go to bed until 12:30 or 1 a.m. At most, he gets seven hours of sleep at night and usually around five or six, he said. "Thankfully I can keep my grades up but it's really difficult," he said.
Write to Sumathi Reddy at sumathi.reddy@wsj.com
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