By Eva Hyman, Special to Nighthawk News
When asking any high school student if they would enjoy an extra hour of sleep every morning, you assume the answer would be an enthusiastic yes. After all, we all know how excited students get over a little weather delay.
But what would the answer be if it meant you got dismissed from school an hour later? Would that extra hour in the morning help you perform better in your earlier classes? Would you have fewer tardies? Would your sports or after-school activities be impacted by getting out of school at 4:30 instead of 3:30?
These are all questions that need to be taken into consideration when thinking about a possible change in the school day schedule from the traditional 8:30 start time at FFHS.
“That’s a really tough question,” said Amanda Hooper, the mom of two high school students. “The teenage brain, especially high school students, typically would like to sleep later and would like to stay up later. However, a lot of them have to work in the afternoon and that would prevent them from being able to hold a job.”
All the scientific studies end in the same answer: More sleep equates to a better performance by teenagers. One study even showed that better sleep at the proper time makes for notably fewer injuries in student-athletes.
A different study conducted by the National Sleep Foundation shows when students started their school day an hour later than normal, their math test scores improved an average of two points and English scores rose an average of 1.5 points. The same study found that lower-performing students’ grades were improved greater than high-performing students when the day was set back an hour.
While some high schools start as early as 7:30, many FFHS students are satisfied with the current 8:30 bell. Sophomore Lana Walters said she wouldn’t like school to start an hour later so students have more time in the afternoon to get stuff done.
Walters is part of the FFHS swim team, meaning she has to wake up at 5 a.m. four out of the five school days a week to be at her 6 a.m. practices at the YMCA. When asking Walters how the school day starting an hour later would affect the amount of people that do swim, she said she thought it wouldn’t change who joined the team but people would definitely be happier if they didn’t have to wake up as early as they usually do.
When Walters was asked if she would be better focused in school with an extra hour of sleep in the morning, she said, “Yes, I feel like a lot of people would. But I also think a lot of people having trouble focusing in school aren’t sleep deprived. It’s more the lack of being able to do anything like get up and move around.”
But in reality, would students really use an extra hour in the morning to catch up on sleep? Or would they get up to finish the homework they forgot to do the night before? Finish watching the episode of the show they fell asleep to? Simply stay in bed scrolling through social media? Or go run a few errands to get them out of the way before school starts?
When Michelle Winters, a teacher at Manteo Middle school, was asked if her students would be better focused if school started an hour later, she answered, “Yes, but starting later does not guarantee sleep. That doesn’t mean the students aren’t just gonna stay up till 2 or 3 in the morning. And if your friends are up, you’re going to be up.”
Winters doesn’t think it would be a good idea to delay the school schedule, saying it would be too big of a change and would mess with the students’ and teachers’ days too greatly.
“In my mind (as a Social Studies teacher), you have English and math homework you should focus on, but you also have sports,” she said, adding that many kids already get home so late with their after-school activities that if school got pushed back the students would have even less time to complete their homework.
Winters also works a secondary job as a waitress at TRiO and mentioned how an altered schedule would interfere with her after-school job. Currently, her school is dismissed at 3:20, and Winters is only allowed to leave after all cars, buses and students are gone.
“I couldn’t have that. The change out in most restaurants is 4 o’clock or 4:30. It would impact anybody that’s trying to serve or bartend after teaching,” she said. “I already have a lot of forgiveness. If I’m 15 minutes late, no one questions why I’m late because they know I’m coming straight from school. Like, I walked in with my school badge today.”
Sophomore Eva Hyman wrote this story for her Intro to Publications semester project. She can be reached at HymanEv6527@daretolearn.org.
