Worries About School Starting Times | Teen Ink

Worries About School Starting Times

March 23, 2016
By KimNguyen BRONZE, Ho Chi Minh, Other
KimNguyen BRONZE, Ho Chi Minh, Other
3 articles 0 photos 0 comments

School starting time have been an ongoing controversial topic about whether school should push the starting time later by one hour or more. Every student says that school is starting relatively too early and this should change because many teens nowadays barely have any time to sleep. They have difficulties going to bed at a time that would provide them with enough sleep. Scientists have also discovered that there is a relationship between lack of sleep and academic performance in school, and their results shows that getting more sleep would help students improve their learning. School should start later because it results in better grades and will reduce teens driving, that leads to car accidents. Though some may argue that this would affect parents' schedule and causes difficulties, this idea is unconvincing because the students' health, safety, and education should be a top priority.

 

I think school should start later is because it helps improve their final performance. This is important because students would concentrate better if they have enough sleep, and so students would understand the assignment better. In consequence, they would earn a better grade. School starting later helps students improve school attendance, standardized test score and academic performance. It is logical to say that this would help students enjoy going to school more and also help them concentrate in class better. When they concentrate, they would be able to understand what the teacher is talking about, and achieve better results. I, myself, can see that the start of every morning can be very stressful, and I am usually in a risk of being tardy to school. It is because I have a very hard time sleeping at night. I always end up going to sleep at about 11-12pm because number one, there are a lot of homework and projects that are due at the same time, and also I think that it also relates to the hormonal changes in my body. However, sometimes when I do have enough sleep each night I tend to concentrate in class better instead of being sleepy in class. I think that sleeping plays a big role in everybody's body because when I have about 9 hours or more of sleep then whenever I wake up, I am always ready and everything flows faster and even in school. For example, I would finish a piece of work a lot faster than my normal pace, and also there's a lot more ideas that comes to me. From my perspective, I think that pushing back the school starting time would really help students become a more creative person and also this would also benefit the teacher by giving them more time in the morning to prepare for classes. Therefore, school should start later so that students have enough sleep which help them earn higher grades.

 

In addition, I think that school should start later because it would reduce car accidents caused by teens. Most teen accidents were caused by students sleeping while  driving and lack of concentration. Nancy Shute stated that over 100,000 students die every year because of teenage car accidents.The evidence indicates that because students are not having enough sleep, they tend to have slower reflexes while driving. This would lead to the point where they have no control over  the car and might be unable to save themselves. Since they are not concentrating, they would put themselves and as well as others in danger. When high schools in Kentucky changed their start times from 7:30 a.m. to 8:30 a.m., teen car crash rates dropped by more than 16 percent. This point shows that when school starts later, the number of accidents dropped significantly because they won't be affected by the lack of sleep while driving. I can see that the school starting time did affect the number of accidents because when students are in a rush, they would drive quickly. However, since they are still sleepy, during their fast drive they would lose control and firstly would put themselves at risk, and furthermore might affect others properties and life too. Therefore, if the number of accidents dropped, we would save a lot of people and the properties around the area. Clearly, school starting later is beneficial to students by inducing teen safety.

 

However, some argue that this would affect the parents' schedule. Many parents and school officials will likely have their own schedules and routines affected by any changes. The evidence is saying that because school is starting later parents have to stay behind to take their children to school, but the problem is that their work time may not be adjustable. Also, traffic jam is one of their biggest problem because during that time there's are  many people trying to get to school or work. Although this argument appears persuasive at first, in reality their children's health, safety and academic performance  should be prioritized. In my family, my parents are the ones that drive me to school in the morning, and they are actually the one who wants the school to start a little later so I can have a better amount of sleep. They also said that they always have to go to work a little later, because around 7-8am there's a lot of traffic jam. However, if my dad needs to go early in the morning, he would leave the car at home and my mum would drive me to school. Sometimes, I walk to school too because having a little walk in the morning helps my body wake up and prepare me for a long day at school. This leads to the conclusion that parents can actually manage their time in a way that would work for their job, but still give their children enough time to sleep. They should work it out in the family to figure out what is the best way to take their children to school at that time. Maybe letting them go by bus or walking would be a good alternative in this case because parents can go to work and the student would be able head to school safely. After looking closely at both sides of the issue one can see that school should start later to ensure safety for students.

 

Because of the results in better grades and reduces teen crashes, school should consider changing the school starting time at least 1 hour later. This would benefit both students and teachers. Even though it might affect parents' schedule, there are many ways to solve this problem. For example, letting them go by bus or walk to school. After examining the reasons, it is clear that parents should change their schedule in order to help improve the students' progress in school. Because of course no parents wants their children to have bad grades and possibly could put them at risk of having a car accident. After all you can always compromise your schedule, but you can’t get another child.


The author's comments:

I wanted to write about this topic because I think that my school here at SSIS starts a little too early, and it is very stressful all the time. Therefore, I wanted to write this to persuade my school and others too.


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