Every year on the second Sunday of March, Daylight Savings Time (DST) shifts the clocks forward by an hour, leaving teachers and students at Skyline High School struggling to adjust. While some state how they were heavily affected by DST in both their academic performance and daily life, others barely feel the effect. 

Alexandra Villalobos, a French teacher at Skyline, remarked how daylight savings affected her students’ performance. She said, “The students are a lot more sluggish in the springtime, especially when we hit spring forward and lose an hour of sleep.” With the earlier time of school, students have less energy, making their academic performance drop in quality. 

Fatigue following DST can impact participation, specifically in the classes that require student engagement for them to learn. Villalobos said, “Participation is a big part, especially in French class which is a participation based course. If they’re too tired and don’t add to the conversation, then they are losing class time, which means the students get behind and cover less of the curriculum.” Her work is done primarily in class rather than homework, and the students who struggle to stay alert during class have trouble remembering all of the material. 

Freshman student Meenakshi Lingutla noticed minor effects of DST on her daily schedule. She said, “It makes getting up in the morning for school a lot harder, but only affects my performance for the first couple days.” While her extracurriculars schedule remains unchanged, she noted that the time change can give her a relapse. “It does make it a lot harder for me to get through the day due to the whiplash of the changed sleeping schedule,” she added.

The transition period after DST can last for days or weeks, which can affect students’ performance long term due to sleep deprivation. According to the National Institute of Health, “With a lack of sleep, an increased amygdala hyperlimbic reaction occurs, resulting in stimuli with negative emotional connotations. This varying level of amygdala activity is linked to a loss of mPFC functional connectivity when sleep deprived, suggesting a decrease in prefrontal lobe inhibition signals.” With the lack of those signals, people have a decrease of cognitive function, creating a lower performance score. 

Villalobos expressed, “I feel like it was originally something to do with more light for farmers or soldiers or something like that, but even now, it’s light until at least 7:30 – 8:00 in the night; it should be light in the morning for kids to go to school.” The necessity of DST has been debated for years. Originally, it was created during World War I in the United States to conserve energy, according to the US Department of Defense, and was later standardized to the whole country. 

Lingutla had a similar viewpoint, sharing her concerns about safety: “I believe that there are actually more car crashes during daylight savings, which is a large safety issue.” She is referring to the 2020 Current Biology study which has connected DST with a 6 percent rise in car crashes, especially in the first few weeks. Those have been attributed to sleep deprivation and altered commuting conditions. 

While some argue that DST provides a morning full of light and a time to be more productive, others believe the drawbacks outweigh the advantages. The difficulty adjusting to the time, the potential impact on academic performance, and concerns about safety add on to the debate. DST will continue to take place, making students and teachers keep having to adapt to the changes it brings every year. Lingutla stated, “I don’t believe it should continue, but it will probably stick around for a while. With studies showing the negative effects like car crashes and academic performance, I think the US should reconsider if it is necessary at all.”