Letter to the president

By: Jackson Puffer

Dear future president, one of the biggest problems in education today is students not liking school. The solution to this problem is having later start times for school, school should start later because it is more convenient, results in more focused students, and it is better for a young adult's health. This change would help make America's education system better and because of these reasons, I believe that schools should have later start times.

To begin, life for many high schoolers is all about things being easy and convenient for them. Simply they want whatever is easiest for them, be it homework, money, jobs, college degrees, and ect.. A later start time for high schoolers gives the convenience of more sleep, more time to get ready in the morning, and more time to prepare for the school day.Concerned parents of high school students may think that later start times will cause less convenience for high school student due to more traffic on the way to school but actually, while having the start time later, there will be less traffic on the roads due to less cars during one time.Because of these reasons, a later start time will lead to more focused students and also give more convenience to high school students.

As we move on to the fact that later start times being related to student focusing in school we find finalizing data that proves the claim. We see that with more sleep, students, on average, perform significantly better. In a study done by TIME magazine “ 14% of variability is increased in math, reading, and writing when students got the recommended 9 and 1/2 hours of sleep that they should be getting instead of national average of 8 hours of sleep for young adults” This information proves that giving students more sleep will lead to advancements in math, reading, and writing for students. A later start time, because of these reasons will help students excel in school and enjoy it more.

Recently, we have been seeing health problems occurring to high school students due to lack of sleep, the health problems that have been seen are narcolepsy, insomnia, sleep apnea among other complications. Studies from the national sleep foundations have shown that “Teens need 8-10 hours of sleep each night for their brains and body to be healthy and function normally.” This information shows that later start times for schools will actually lead to healthier students and that it is detrimental to their health to have less sleep than recommended. When students get more sleep, they will also be more attentive in school and interested in education as well.

In conclusion, with the introduction of later start times in high schools, through the reasons presented, later start times will positively affect students and help them be more engaged in school. This change in education would change our education system for the better and create more focused students in today's high schools.