by Alex Cohen ’20

As all MCPS students can relate to this early morning struggle: drag yourself out of bed, waste time looking for each article of clothing to make the perfect outfit, prepare your lunch for later in the day, quickly grab a not-so-nutritious breakfast, and frantically rush out the door and hope you didn’t forget anything important. It’s a cycle that becomes worse as the week progresses due to the early school start times and little sleep students get. 

In October, California decided to tackle this problem. The new bill signed into law, SB 328, mandates that public middle schools begin classes at 8 a.m. or later while high schools will start no earlier than 8:30 a.m. by the beginning of the 2022-2023 school year. A main supporter of the bill, the American Academy of Pediatrics, declared in 2014 that insufficient sleep for adolescents was a “public health issue” and presented studies that found links between more sleep from later school start times and better school performance and health among adolescents. The California Governor, Gavin Newsom agreed, saying “The science shows that teenage students who start their day later increase their academic performance, attendance, and overall health.” 

MCPS should follow California’s lead and postpone school start times because teens are not programmed to wake up early. According to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, “During adolescence, internal circadian rhythms and biological sleep drive change to result in later sleep and wake times.” Additionally teenagers secrete the sleep hormone melatonin from about 10:45 p.m. until about 8 a.m. This means that adolescents typically have a hard time falling asleep until melatonin secretion begins, and are also typically unable to be naturally awaken until melatonin secretion stops, according to Brown University School of Medicine professor Mary A. Carskadon. Therefore, because the county does not match the school’s schedule to teens’ biological clocks, it causes them to get less sleep and/or bad quality sleep.

Most students are not fully aware and engaged in class in the morning and their grades suffer because of it. According to a study which focused on 882 high school freshmen, cited by the American Academy of Sleep, “Hours of sleep per school night were significantly positively associated with GPA and level of motivation, and significantly negatively associated with clinically significant levels of emotional disturbance and ADHD.” If school start times are pushed back, the schedule will better align with the later times teens currently fall asleep. As a result, the change would increase overall sleep time and based off the study, it should help boost grades. Additionally, another study done by the University of Washington and the Salk Institute for Biological Studies on school start times in Seattle found that, “Later wake-up times were associated with grades that were 4.5 percent higher.” This is a profound impact considering the large number of students that the later start times affected. Therefore, school start times in MCPS should be postponed to help students get better/ higher quality sleep which will help them be more successful academically. 

Furthermore, for most students, sports are a major part of their high school experience. Physically demanding practices, combined with the body’s natural growth from puberty, makes it essential that teens get good quality sleep. The extra sleep in the morning would benefit teachers too. According to Dr. Merrill Mitler, a sleep expert and neuroscientist at NIH, “Sleep services all aspects of our body in one way or another: molecular, energy balance, [etc.]” If MCPS postponed school start times it would help student athletes perform better and prevent injuries, and will allow both students and teachers to physically feel better in the classroom.

Lastly, the later school start times create danger in respect to transportation. Many upperclassmen drive to school in the morning and are not fully rested. Sleep deprivation can have similar effects on the body as drinking alcohol, and according to the American Automobile Association “foregoing two or three hours increases the risk of a crash by 400 percent”. Therefore, to promote safety on the road, the county should start school later. 

MCPS should be working with growing teen minds and bodies, not working against them. The county, if not the state of Maryland, needs to stop this harmful situation by following California’s lead and revising school start times.