Mornings are often hard no matter what time you wake up. However, it does not help when you are getting up at 6, or maybe even 5 a.m. to get ready for school at 7 a.m. As high school students, we all know how difficult it can be to get enough sleep with school, honors and AP classes, extracurricular activities, volunteer work and even jobs for many students. There is just not enough time to get everything done without it taking a toll on our sleep schedules.

The recommended amount of sleep for an adolescent is around 8-10 hours. Despite that, data from the CDC’s National Youth Risk Behavior Surveys shows that, “Between 2009 and 2021, the percentage of high school students who did not get enough sleep increased from 69% to 77%.”

The amount of sleep that students are getting is not sustainable. Because of this, many students support a change to later start times.

“I think [later start times] are a good idea because you will be more well rested for tests, and won’t have to take exams at 7:30 a.m. It will also make morning departures safer because small kids won’t be in the street in the dark,” said 10th grader Eleanor Hintz.

Being well rested improves brain function. With this said, students at MT are generally expected to perform in accordance with regular brain function- in other words, we are expected to perform well in school. This expectation holds true even though we aren’t getting a proper amount of sleep every night due to our current start times, which can directly inhibit our ability to perform at our best. Meltzer and Wahlstrom found that, “after new school start times were implemented in a large suburban district near Denver, more parents of middle and high school students reported sufficient sleep duration, and fewer reported feeling tired.”

Even middle and high school teachers reported improved daytime functioning after the later start times were implemented.

Still, one main argument against start times being later in the day is that students would have to be let out later to make up for the lost time, which could interfere with after-school sports and other extracurricular activities. MTHS science teacher Sarah Hoover expressed concern about this aspect of the issue.

“It’s a great thing, however, it would push back start times. I’m mainly concerned about sports being pushed back until later in the evening,” she said.

Regarding transportation and later extracurricular times, having practices and extracurricular activities end later in the day does have the possibility of being more efficient for parent pick-ups. Most parents are working, meaning that most of them leave for work around 9 in the morning, then leave work at 5 p.m. If practices which typically end at 5:30 were to run a little later, it would be extremely convenient for working parents because they could pick their children up on their way back from work.

Apart from later pick up times, later school start times particularly don’t affect sports and extracurriculars negatively. If anything, later start times are correlated with more sleep, better academic performance, and countless mental and psychical health benefits. Adjusting the times for these activities doesn’t appear to be as extreme as one believes when you start to think of all the listed benefits and more it would provide for students. All in all, it is clear that starting school later may not affect sports in the negative way we believe it will. So, what is holding us back from implementing them?

I believe that we should take a page out of the Lower Merion School District’s plan as a solution. In 2024, they pushed back start times to improve students’ health, making school begin at 8:30 a.m. for high school students. Under this later start time, they still managed to win the PIAA 3A state championship for Girls’ Tennis, and the PIAA District 1 6A championship for Boys’ Basketball. With later start times for school and outside activities, we still have the same chance to be successful as we are currently.

With school work ramping up and midterms on the way, Manheim Township should be prioritizing its students’ health with later start times to improve our overall well-being.