Students’ back-to-school alarms ring as experts fight for later morning start times

As students head back to school for another year, scientists and policymakers are battling over the best morning start times for children and how schedules affect their health and learning.  

The scientific community has rallied against the 8 a.m. start of the typical U.S. school day, with research showing the early clock-in can hurt middle and high school students. But administrators and others struggle with changing the status quo, highlighting concerns regarding bus routes, parent drop-off times and sports. 

“There’s no controversy at all as far as the science is considered,” said Adam Winsler, professor of applied developmental psychology at George Mason University, adding that the real debate is among parents and school districts’ schedules.   

In 2014, the Academy of American Pediatrics (AAP) recommended schools starting classes no earlier than 8:30 a.m. to ensure teenagers get the proper amount of eight to 10 hours of sleep.  

Other groups, including the National Education Association, the nation’s largest teacher’s union, followed suit in pushing for school times to be moved back.  

Fred Medway, a licensed psychologist, said moving start times back even “an hour later” produces a tremendous number of positive results.

“The things which increase are things like amount of sleeping, their physical health, their mental health is better, their academics are better, their attendance is better, their graduation rates are better, they eat more breakfast, they’re more focused in school,” Medway said.

“Things which go down are things like they’re less likely to be tardy, they’re less likely to have depression, less likely to have anxiety, less likely to be hurt at school, especially in a sport injury, less likely to use caffeine,” he added.

Louisiana schools have the earliest average start times in the country, with some sending high school students to school as early as 7:30 a.m. Other states with early classes for teenagers include Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Nevada.

Cora Breuner, an adolescent specialist and co-author of the policy the AAP released for school start times, said some schools in the city of Seattle have moved their start times back to 8:45 a.m.  

“As a doctor who takes care of teenagers, to see the difference in the kids I take care of in terms of their mental health and their ability to be resilient and go to schools, continue to participate in sports and have a happier and healthier reflection on life in their future — I mean, I’m literally seeing it in the kids I take care of,” she said.  

The changes particularly help older children — younger ones have earlier bedtimes and often face fewer screen-based distractions, making it easier for them to fulfill their sleep needs.

California in 2019 became the first state to mandate that school starts after 8 a.m., while a Florida law requires that by 2026, no school may start before 8 a.m., and 8:30 a.m. for high schools.

Multiple other states have considered legislation along those lines, but change can be slow to come and face surprising opposition. 

“There’s a strong, vocal, usually minority of parents and folks who just don’t like the idea of their high school kids sleeping in in the morning and getting home later in the afternoon,” Winsler said. “And the reasons that they come up with are everything” from sports practice to having the older kids at home to watch younger ones, he added.

Moving back class times can also conflict with parents’ work schedules.

But it’s not only parents who struggle with potential changes. Districts face financial and logistical hurdles in switching bus schedules and rearranging other parts of the school day. 

Breuner called for any changes to be well-funded so schools don’t face hardships trying to be healthier for their students.

In the city of Seattle, she said, they’ve been able to “get our sports coaches to have their sports start later in the afternoon. We’ve been able to get people to understand it’s not the job of the teenagers to babysit their siblings.”

“The schools need to provide after-school programs for the kids in elementary school so that the adolescents aren’t doing that and [are] able to be more in sports and do other things besides that,” Breuner said.