Skyline High School starts school at 7:30 AM, two hours before teens naturally wake up between 9 and 10 AM, according to an article by the Nationwide Children’s Hospital. Beyond making highschoolers very tired, it can also correlate with lower test scores.

Freshman Shreya Bhurtel says, “For one of my tests in English, I completely zoned out because I was so tired.” Bhurtel is not the only student at Skyline who has been tired and unready for a test due to lack of sleep. According to Freshman Jade Cantwell, “My first period I had a test, I was not fully awake, making it harder to focus.” 

Sometimes, students are not using their first period time at all, giving them more work to do later in the day on top of their already hectic lives. Junior Auzeen Tashnizi stated, “Honestly, in my first and even my second period, I’m not really doing much, I’m just waiting to do it later. If I’m too tired to do something adequately, I push it to the side, it ends up being an extra thing I have to do later, and then it just piles on.” All three students reported being less focused, not mentally present, and zoned out in the first period.

There are many reasons why students are tired and disengaged at 7:30 AM. First and foremost, lack of sleep. Across the students I interviewed, they were getting as much as eight hours and as little as five hours of sleep each night. On average, six. For teenagers, nine to eleven hours is recommended, if not at least eight. 

In addition, Cantwell, Bhurtel, Tashnizi, and student Bailey Mckethien all agreed that they do not have time to eat breakfast in the morning. Tired bodies running on very few calories are already being set up to fail in school.

This was not only corroborated by students at Skyline, ranging from Freshman to Junior, but also by scientific evidence. According to the American Psychology Association, “multiple studies found that schools starting between 8 and 9 AM had higher attendance, less tardiness, higher grades, and fewer car crashes.” 

Another quote from an article by the University of Minnesota reads, “Academic performance outcomes, including grades earned in core subject areas of math, English, science and social studies, plus performance on state and national achievement tests, attendance rates and reduced tardiness show significantly positive improvement with the later start times of 8:35 AM or later.” 

I urge the school district to consider moving school start times to 8 AM or later. This would allow more students to not only perform better at school and on standardized tests, but also prevent risks such as car crashes and negative side effects that come with lack of sleep over a long period. As Mckethien put it: “Sleep is necessary in order for students to manage everything, stay on top of school and extracurriculars. Early start times make that really hard.”