Why School Should Start Later Essay Example for Free

Why School Should Start Later Essay Dont you hate waking up early in the morning? During the school year, students wake up early to get ready for school. In my opinion, its not practical for students to begin classes before 8:00 AM. I feel that schools should start an hour later, resulting in better attendances, grades and attitudes. Its a proven fact that teenagers need between 8 ? and 9 hours of sleep each night. Its also a proven fact that only 15 % of teenagers get the sleep that they need. Can you believe that more than 25 % of teenagers sleep less than seven hours a night? Are you one of those teenagers? Well, part of the reason why this is happening is because school starts so early in the morning. If school hours were changed, teenagers would be much healthier and feel better. If school started later, teenagers will have a longer time to sleep and time to prepare for school. A later start would mean that students would not be late to school as often as they have more time to wake up and get ready for school. The concentration levels of the students would increase as they have had the chance to prepare themselves for the day ahead. If concentration is improved then the rise in grades will increase. It will be more productive for schools and it would also give teachers more time to prepare for classes and the day ahead before the students arrive. Furthermore, school officials are always complaining that so many of their students are constantly tardy to school. They even have a policy in our school that states, if you are tardy five times to a certain class you have to stay an hour after school sitting in detention. Out of the many reasons students receive an office detention for being tardy; its usually due to their first period class. They dont get to school on time because they oversleep, so if these school officials dont like students being tardy, why dont they consider having school start later? Additionally, the first two periods seem like a waste. Students arent learning to their full potential, and as a result arent getting the grades they are capable of. Over 20 % of all high school students fall asleep in school at one time or another. Its hard to learn while youre sleeping. Also, part of the reason why students dont get enough sleep is because they are up late studying. You cant expect students to come home from school, study, eat dinner, do their homework and then go to bed right away. Teenagers need to watch TV, talk to their friends, and run errands after school. We arent machines; we need fun in our lives. With an extra hour of sleep, we will be refreshed and ready to learn for our first couple of classes. While many people say that if schools started an hour later, kids would just be staying up longer and goofing off, theyre wrong. Having that extra hour, students could have time to relax and wouldnt feel as rushed to do everything they have to do. So whats the problem? There is none. School officials need to stop making excuses against this. In a nutshell, I believe all schools including ours should adopt this schedule of beginning the school day an hour later. With an extra hour of sleep, students would have better attendance, better grades, and a better attitude towards school. What is the use of trying to teach kids that cant learn? Sending kids to school before they have had ample time to wake up will only result in them not learning to their full potential.