If you walk into any school across the U.S (and maybe the world), you will notice something shockingly common amongst the students. They’re all tired, evident by the bags under their eyes and the coffee cups in hand. In fact, recent studies have proven that schools start way too early for the average teenager, and as a result, teens don’t get enough sleep. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently released information about how school start times can affect teenagers’ sleep schedules, and they say that the recommended time for schools to start is 8:30 or later.

On a nightly basis, after coming home from either Model UN or a stagecraft meeting that ran way too late, I still have a substantial amount of homework to do for the next day. So, at 5:30 or 6, I start working on all of my assignments that total up to two hours of work. And those two hours don’t count me eating dinner, taking short breaks, getting distracted, or any of my additional work I need to do for extra-curriculars. By the time I’m done, it ends up being around 10:30, and then I have to wake up at 6:30 to get to school.

By the way, sleeping from 10:30 to 6:30 is exactly 8 hours of sleep, and that’s the minimum amount that kids need to function. And that’s just me. I know that tons of kids at Parker have practices or games that cause them to not get back home until 8 or 9 at night, and they still have to do homework and eat. And then they have to go to sleep late, and wake up at 7:00 or maybe earlier to get to school.

The whole idea of a no-sleep culture is all too prevalent at Parker. I have heard conversations in the hallway that usually involves the words: “I stayed up until midnight,” or some other late time. And the reasons for doing so usually don’t warrant the lack of sleep that comes with it. The point is, you shouldn’t stay up late doing nothing. Get to sleep as soon as you can, so you can possibly get those 8 hours we so desperately need as teenagers.

Here’s the reason why this all matters to you: the lack of sleep that we get can deeply affect us, both emotionally and physically. According to that study I mentioned earlier, teenagers who do not get enough sleep will be more likely to be overweight, not engage in daily physical activity, suffer from symptoms of depression, engage in unhealthy risk behaviors such as drinking, smoking tobacco, using illicit drugs, and performing poorly in school.

That is why I think that Parker should push back the start of school until 9:00 AM, which would easily give students enough time to achieve at least the bare minimum amount of sleep that we need to properly function on a daily basis. This would definitely help Parker students get enough sleep to function, and not have to rely on coffee to stay awake during the day.

Interestingly, in 2015 Parker did test out a new schedule, in which the amount of passing periods were shortened in order for classes to get more time, but it only lasted two weeks before pushed under the table for future years. Since this was not continued for 3 years, I am proposing that Parker tries to implement that program, only this time the focus shifts towards starting later but still getting the same amount of class time each teacher requires. For instance, if Parker started an hour later, then maybe some of the break periods should be shortened, like Graderoom, G or H break. This way, teachers can still get the amount of teaching time they require, but at the same time the students can get the necessary hours of sleep they need. I think that this needs to be implemented as quickly as possible, and if possible we should do a test of this new schedule sometime this year, so the results can show if this idea is even a feasible one.