Later Start Time for High School Students

Pediatricians agree: a teenager's natural sleep rhythm does not correspond with school start times. As a result, most students are already attending their first class before their brains wake up.

Sleep deprivation is not only unhealthy, it affects student performance in school. To give teenagers the best opportunity to succeed, we join the American Academy of Pediatrics in calling for schools to start the day no sooner than 8:30 a.m. each morning.