80% of schools around the U.S start before 8 a.m., which means that many students that will be attending those schools will windup sleep deprived. Waking up early in the morning has began to raise a red flag to parents and doctors noticing a decrease in academic success. I don’t think school needs to start at 10am but maybe 8:00 or 8:30 which would gives students almost an extra hour and a half of sleep depending on when you wake up to get ready.

School districts are expecting students to come to school for about seven hours and then send you home with about two to three hours of homework. After a while of that on repeat students are going to have a tough time staying on task in school and a tough time actually learning. I know for many students there’s only so much work you can do until you start to lose your mind.

Not to mention studies have linked students who don’t get enough sleep to drug and alcohol abuse and higher suicide rate. If that doesn’t light up your eyes with a problem I don’t know what will.

I know students have to realize that you will always have homework and always will have those days when you are just worn out from work but you just have to keep on going. But when you’re waking up around five to six a.m. every morning good luck… “You’re going to be worn out after a while.”

For students with health risks, this can have serious consequences with their mental and physical well being. Knowing friends and fellow students with any type of health problems, I have seen first hand that early mornings and a lot of homework on weeknights do not mix well. If you don’t have any health risks you are still at risk, Rep. Zoe Lofgren stated “overtime, sleep deprivation leads to serious consequences for academic achievement, social behavior, and the health and safety of our nation’s youth.”

Physicians have recommended that teens should get at least 8.5 to 9.5 hours of sleep per night. I wish I could get that much sleep per night. If the academic success is down, students are sleeping more than learning and doctors are finding correlations of sleep deprivation to drug and alcohol use, why not make a change to the bell schedule.