School starting early is one of the main reasons why students fail to get enough sleep throughout the week. Teenagers are recommended to get 8-10 hours of sleep every night. The CDC says, “Children and adolescents who do not get enough sleep have a higher risk of obesity, diabetes, injuries, poor mental health, and problems with attention and behavior.” These issues can not only cause students to lose focus, but can have long term effects in later life. 

Sophomore Alexis Gonzalez thinks that an extra hour to thirty minutes of sleep would greatly improve her life, but she considers the cons as well. 

“A lot of students don’t get enough sleep due to finishing homework or sports after school. I think that having a later start would be great, even if it was only on certain days of the week.”

In the neighboring state of California, most schools don’t start until 8 am or later. The debate is whether this is an advantage or a disadvantage because these students get out closer to 3 pm. With extracurricular activities, getting home very late is a possibility. Although getting more sleep would help power students to get through the day and what comes after it. 

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Courtesy of Shadow Ridge Website

Shadow Ridge has changed schedules, changing start time could be possible.

Junior Aliandra Rizo explains, “As much as I would like a late start I feel like it would make school even more miserable. We would get out later than we already do, and most people would still need to wake up around the same time if not earlier.”

Starting school at a later time would require a schedule change next year, as well as new times for the buses and other activities. Overall it would change the school a lot and would be hard to get all of the CCSD schools and sports practices on board. Many clubs would also have to work around a new plan because of school ending later in the day. 

Gonzalez continues, “Those who have parents who work may not favor the later start because they would have to drop off their kids earlier. If students wanted to make up a test they wouldn’t really have more time to sleep.”

Later starts on certain days could be doable but many students argue that it is just a tease and would potentially get confusing overtime. It took a while to get used to the split schedules, so potentially having late start days on a reoccurring schedule could be easier.