why should school start later in the day essay

Exploring the Evidence: 7 Comprehensive Reasons Why School Should Start Later for Enhanced Student Well-being and Academic Success

Reasons why School should Start Later in the Morning: – Better for students sleep and attendance – Don’t need to stay up as late to do homework because you can do it in the morning — Pisha 🍉 ⪩⚢⪨ Et Le Ena Piou (@mafuanenautism)  September 30, 2022

On this page, you will discover:

7 Reasons Why School Should Start Later

1. improves academic performance.

Why It Is Important

2. Allows Teens to Get More Sleep

Adopting later school start times harmonizes with teenagers’ biological clocks, addressing the mismatch between early school schedules and adolescents’ sleep needs. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine’s recommendations highlight the importance of adequate sleep for teenagers, a demographic often burdened by early start times and societal pressures that encroach on their sleep duration. This shift not only ensures they meet the optimal sleep quota but also enhances their overall health and cognitive function.

3. Reduces Absenteeism

This not only benefits students’ academic performance and continuity of learning but also contributes to a more vibrant, participatory school environment. Improved health outcomes due to adequate sleep thus serve as a preventive measure against common ailments, ensuring that students remain present and engaged in their educational journey.

4. Lowers Risk of Depression and Mental Health Issues

The crucial relationship between sleep and mental health, particularly in adolescents, cannot be overstated. Addressing sleep deprivation through later school start times is a preventative measure that could significantly improve students’ mental health outcomes.

The interplay between sleep and mental health is critical, especially during the volatile adolescent years. Inadequate sleep has been consistently linked to increased risks of depression, anxiety, and other mental health issues. By shifting school start times later, students are afforded the opportunity to align their sleep schedules with their biological needs, significantly mitigating these risks.

5. Reduces Drowsy Driving in Teens

With the initiation of driving coinciding with the teenage years, the risk of drowsy driving becomes a pressing concern. Adjusting school start times to ensure teenagers get enough sleep could be a critical step in enhancing road safety and reducing accidents.

Teenage years coincide with the commencement of driving for many, introducing risks associated with drowsy driving. The CDC has identified sleep deprivation as a key factor in teen driving accidents. By enabling teens to align their sleep schedules with natural rhythms through later school start times, the incidence of drowsy driving can be significantly reduced.

This has the dual benefit of enhancing individual safety and contributing to broader public safety outcomes. Preventing accidents through such measures not only saves lives but also fosters a culture of responsible driving habits among young individuals.

Explore the findings of a new study on teen drivers and the risks of drowsy driving in this informative video recommended for viewing.

6. Helps Teens Feel Happier

By adopting later start times, schools can help rectify this misalignment, allowing students to adhere to a more natural sleep schedule. This adjustment can lead to improved mood, greater resilience, and a more positive outlook on life, which are crucial for healthy adolescent development and academic success.

Discover how a high school in Dedham, Massachusetts is combating student feelings of hopelessness with an innovative course on finding happiness through savoring experiences and fostering relationships in this inspiring video.

7. Reduced Stress

The stress induced by early mornings and lack of sleep can significantly affect students’ academic and social lives. By moving the start of the school day later, schools can alleviate a major source of daily stress, contributing to a healthier, more conducive learning environment.

By mitigating one of the many stressors in students’ lives, schools can create a more supportive and productive learning environment. The benefits of such a change extend beyond the individual, positively affecting the school culture and community at large.

The Potential Drawbacks of Starting School Later

1. scheduling sports and extracurriculars becomes more difficult.

One potential drawback of starting school later is the complication it introduces to scheduling sports and extracurricular activities. Many students are actively involved in after-school programs, including sports teams, clubs, and other organizations that play a significant role in their development. This presents a clear argument for why school should not start later, as it could lead to conflicts with extracurricular activities that depend on fixed schedules. This can result in logistical challenges for both students and program coordinators, potentially causing students to miss out on opportunities that contribute to their growth beyond academics.

In response to this challenge, schools and communities can adapt by rethinking and possibly reinventing the scheduling and structure of extracurricular activities. Flexibility in planning, such as holding some activities in the morning or making more efficient use of weekends, can ensure students continue to benefit from these programs. Moreover, a later start time might actually enhance student participation and performance in extracurriculars, as students would be better rested and more focused, potentially leading to a richer extracurricular experience.

2. Increases Childcare Costs and Logistical Challenges for Working Parents

The shift to later school start times can increase childcare costs and create logistical challenges for working parents. Parents may find themselves needing to arrange for additional morning care or adjust their work schedules to accommodate the change. This can add financial strain and complicate the balance between work and family life, creating stress and potentially impacting the overall well-being of families.

3. May Make After-School Jobs and Activities More Difficult

On the flip side, a later start time can lead to more alert and productive students, potentially making them more efficient in balancing work, activities, and school responsibilities. Schools and local businesses could collaborate to offer flexible working arrangements for students, recognizing the mutual benefits of supporting adolescent development while maintaining their contribution to the workforce and community engagement.

4. Reduces Time for Homework and Family Activities

A later dismissal time from school may compress the window available for homework, relaxation, and family time, essential components of a student’s well-being and academic success. This reduction in available time during the evening can increase stress and limit opportunities for meaningful family interaction and adequate academic preparation.

This challenge necessitates a more efficient approach to homework and after-school time management, potentially encouraging schools to reassess the volume and nature of homework assigned. With strategic planning and support, students can learn to manage their time effectively, ensuring they have sufficient opportunities for both academic responsibilities and family engagement. Additionally, the quality of family time can improve when students are less stressed and more rested, making the time spent together more meaningful.

The Impact of Delayed School Start Times in Seattle School District

The findings, published in Science Advances, revealed significant benefits stemming from the later start times. On average, students gained an additional 34 minutes of sleep per night, increasing their total nightly sleep from six hours and 50 minutes to seven hours and 24 minutes. This increase brought students closer to achieving the recommended sleep amount and marked a reversal in the century-long trend of gradual sleep loss among adolescents.

Despite the success observed in Seattle, such shifts in school start times remain relatively rare across the United States, where the typical start time still hovers around 8 a.m. However, the Seattle School District’s experience stands as a compelling testament to the benefits of later start times, supported by the American Academy of Pediatrics’ advocacy for this change as an effective countermeasure to the widespread issue of sleep deprivation among teenagers.

The Seattle School District’s initiative demonstrates a proactive approach to student health and education, providing valuable insights and evidence for other districts contemplating similar adjustments. By prioritizing the sleep needs of students, the district not only improved their academic and health outcomes but also set a precedent for the importance of aligning educational policies with scientific research on adolescent well-being.

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Should School Start Later?

Experts say a later schedule could be good for your health.

• Purpose This debate has a clear purpose: to explore the question of whether school should start later.
• Structure The text is mostly informational. Points for and against pushing back school start times are woven throughout the article.
• Language Conventionality and Clarity Vocabulary: some challenging academic vocabulary (e.g., compelling, impede, invest) Conventionality: The language is mostly conventional.
• Anchor Standards R.1, R.2, R.6, R.8, W.1, W.4, W.5, W.7, SL.1, L.4, L.6
• Grade 6 RI.6.1, RI.6.2, RI.6.6, RI.6.8, W.6.1, W.6.4, W.6.5, SL.6.1, L.6.4, L.6.6
• Grade 7 RI.7.1, RI.7.2, RI.7.4, W.7.2, W,7.4, W.7.5, SL.7.1, SL.7.2, L.7.4, L.7.6
• Grade 8 RI.8.1, RI.8.2, RI.8.6, RI.8.8, W.8.1, W.8.4, W.8.5, SL.8.1, L.8.4, L.8.6
• 1a, 1c, 1d, 2a, 2b, 3a, 4a, 5a, 5b, 5d, 5e, 5f, 5g, 5h, 5i, 6a, 6b, 6c, 6d, 6e, 6f, 6g, 6h, 6i, 6j, 8d, 8e, 8f, 9a, 9b, 9c, 9d, 9e, 9f, 9g, 10a, 10b, 10c, 10d, 10e, 11c, 11d, 12d, 12f, 12g, 12h, 12i, 12j
• Lesson Plan

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 Your phone shrieks. Confused and groggy, you open your eyes. Surely it isn’t time to get up already? You tap snooze and sink back into dreamland—until your dad knocks on the door.

“Wake up!” he calls. “The bus will be here in 10 minutes!”

You groan. Five more minutes. Please, please, pleeaasseeeee!

If this sounds familiar, you aren’t alone. Before the pandemic, nearly 70 percent of teens weren’t getting enough sleep.*

Last year, things were different. Many teens were able to sleep in because remote classes started later, didn’t require a commute, or gave students flexibility in their schedules. But now that in-person school has resumed, teens across America are once again battling their alarms, and a debate has reignited: Should school start later?

The Science of Sleep

In the U.S., the average start time for middle and high schools is a few minutes after 8 a.m. It hasn’t always been this way, though. A century ago, most schools started around 9 a.m. Then in the 1970s, districts began shifting to earlier schedules for teens, with elementary age kids starting later. This saved districts money because it reduced the number of buses needed: When start times are staggered, the same buses can make multiple trips; otherwise, you need enough buses to transport all elementary, middle, and high school students at once.

Today, we know much more about teens and the science of sleep. Scientists now understand that adolescents experience something called “phase delay.” Here’s how it works: At night, our bodies release a hormone called melatonin that makes us sleepy. Around middle school, this melatonin release gets pushed back by one to two hours. As a result, many teens have a hard time falling asleep before 11 p.m. If you have to be at school by 8 a.m., it can be tough—if not impossible—to get the 8 to 10 hours of sleep you need to be healthy.

And that’s a problem.

“If teens aren’t getting enough sleep, it’s going to impact every aspect of their life,” says Dr. Lisa Meltzer, a sleep psychologist.

Indeed, being exhausted can make you cranky and sad. It can make it harder to concentrate, sit still, and learn. And it can weaken your immune system and impede your ability to make good decisions.

Given how critical sleep is to your well-being, it’s no surprise many experts recommend that middle and high schools start no earlier than 8:30 a.m.**

Benefits and Drawbacks

In 2017, Cherry Creek school district in Colorado pushed back start times for its middle and high schools. Since then, students have said they are less sleepy during the school day and participate more in first period. Meltzer, who led a study of Cherry Creek students, found that kids were sleeping more—and they stopped falling asleep doing their homework.

Over the past few years, hundreds of other schools have also experimented with later start times. The results have been promising, with students feeling more alert and fewer incidents of tardiness.

If later start times are good for teens, why doesn’t everyone make the switch? Unfortunately, it’s not so simple. For one thing, starting later means ending later, which leaves less time for after-school activities like sports, dance, and music. For outdoor activities, this is especially problematic during the winter, when daylight hours are limited.

Later dismissal times could also cut into after-school jobs and create scheduling conflicts for families. In Cherry Creek, some families say they have less time in the evening for homework and dinner.

Transportation is another obstacle. Later start times could require some districts to invest in additional buses and drivers, which can be costly. And many parents might not be able to drive their kids to school before work.

Of course, early start times aren’t the only reason that teens are exhausted. Many things can get in the way of a good night’s sleep, such as caffeine, stress, overscheduling, and too much screen time.

Still, the benefits of a later start time are compelling. So what do you think? Should more schools start later?

*Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

**Recommended by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, American Academy of Pediatrics, American Medical Association, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Writing Task

Should school start later?

Go back to the article and find arguments that support each side of this debate. Write the information you find on a piece of paper. You can use this information in an argument essay on this topic.

This article was originally published in the October 2022 issue .

Close Reading, Critical Thinking, Skill Building

1. preparing to read.

• Give students a minute or so to preview the text features—the headline, illustrations or photos, any charts or graphs, etc. Ask them what they think the article is going to be about.
• Project the list of Vocabulary Definitions (available in your Resources tab) for students to refer to as they read. The reinforcement activity may be completed after reading or assigned as homework.

2. READING AND TEXT MARKING

• Read both texts as a class. 
• Ask: “No matter what you personally think about this issue, which author do you think makes the better argument?” Take a poll and tally the results on the board. 
• Project the first text. Complete the Scavenger Hunt, modeling text marking on your whiteboard while students mark their magazines. Or, distribute the Scavenger Hunt activity (available in your Resources tab). 

3. DISCUSSION

Discuss the following as a class.

• What do the authors agree about? What do they disagree about?
• Which images support each author’s argument? How?
• What is each author’s tone? Explain your answer. 
• Divide students into groups according to which author they believe makes the stronger argument. Have the groups stand on opposite sides of the room. Students can then debate: One student offers a reason (support) for his or her opinion; a student from the other group responds. Students should quietly walk to the other side of the room if at any point during the debate they change their minds; be sure to ask any student who does this why he or she did so.
• At the end of the debate, compare the number of students who support each author with the number who supported each author before the debate.

Why Should School Start Later?

Table of Contents

Teens reverie sleep each day. This need does not imply laziness on their part or lack of ambition thereof. Instead, sleep cycles change as children grow into adolescence. In adolescence, teens stay up until late and only get up late. It happens because their bodies release a hormone called melatonin which regulates their sleep. Consequently, the melatonin-induced rest keeps teens asleep until 8 a.m. making it appropriate to go to school later. Schools starting later help improve physiological and psychological well-being and help improve learners’ educational performance.

Physiological and Physical Well-Being

Arguably, the most crucial reason schools should start later is adolescent physiology. Adolescents are still growing and developing, and their body clocks are still changing. Studies have shown that, due to these changes, adolescents tend to go to bed later and wake up later than adults, leading to a lack of sleep (Crowley et at., 2018). This lack of sleep can negatively affect adolescents’ physical and mental health, such as fatigue, irritability, and poor concentration. Starting school later would allow adolescents to get the amount of sleep they need. A study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that when schools started later, adolescents got an extra 42 minutes of sleep per night compared to when schools began earlier. This extra sleep can help to improve their physical and mental health and can help to improve their performance in school.

The teenage years are a time of rapid physical and psychological growth and development. As adolescents try to figure out who they are and where they fit in, they often feel overwhelmed by the pressures of school, their peers, and society. As a result, adolescents are more prone to stress and anxiety than adults. One way to help reduce this stress is to start school later in the morning. By giving adolescents more time to rest and relax before facing the pressures of school, they can better manage their stress levels (Freeman et at., 2020). Studies have shown that adolescents report feeling less stressed, more rested, and more alert when school starts later in the morning. These findings suggest that starting school later in the morning can reduce stress and improve psychological functioning in adolescents. In addition to reducing stress, starting school later can also help to enhance adolescents’ self-esteem.

Adolescents often struggle with insecurity and self-doubt as they try to fit in with their peers and find their place in the world (Freeman et al., 2020). As a result, they often compare themselves to their peers, leading to feelings of inadequacy and low self-esteem. Starting school later can reduce this pressure by giving adolescents more time to rest and relax. This habit can help adolescents to accept themselves for who they are and be more confident in their abilities. Evidence from studies has shown that when school starts later in the morning, adolescents report feeling more positive about themselves, including handling more confident, less anxious, and less stressed (Patrick et al., 2020). Starting school later can also help adolescents better manage their emotions. Adolescents often struggle with regulating their emotions and can become easily overwhelmed by their feelings. These emotional states can lead to irritability, impulsivity, and aggression. However, starting school later in the morning can help reduce these feelings, giving adolescents more time to rest and relax before facing the pressures of school. Evidence from studies has shown that when school starts later, adolescents report feeling less irritable, more alert, and more capable of managing their emotions.

Educational Reasons

The most apparent educational benefit of starting school later is that it gives students more time to sleep. Sleep is an essential part of a healthy lifestyle and is vital for students’ physical and mental health. A later start can give students more time to get the sleep they need to be well-rested and alert during the school day. Studies have shown that students who get adequate sleep are more likely to perform academically, attend better, and be more motivated in school (Sweller et al., 2019). In addition to the potential health benefits of getting more sleep, starting school later can also provide more time for learning and development. With more time in the morning, adolescents can participate in activities such as studying, reading, or reviewing material they learned the previous day. This action can help improve their understanding of the material and help them retain the information longer.

A later start time can also provide more time for extracurricular activities and sports. These activities can help improve adolescents’ physical health and provide them with opportunities for social interaction and emotional development (Freeman et al., 2020). Providing adolescents more time for these activities can help improve their overall well-being. Furthermore, starting school later can help to reduce the stress that students often experience. With a later start time, students can spend more time on activities they enjoy and less worrying about getting up for school in the morning. This will help reduce stress levels and allows students to focus more on their education.

In conclusion, there are many advantages to having school start later. School starting later would give students more time to get adequate sleep, which helps with their mental and physical health. Furthermore, students would be more alert and have better focus during their classes, allowing them to absorb more information and make better grades. Later starting times also give students more time to spend on extracurricular activities and less time worrying about homework and exams. Finally, starting school later would reduce students’ stress and help create a more positive school environment. In addition, starting school later would benefit both students and teachers, an idea that school administrators should seriously consider.

• Crowley, S. J., Wolfson, A. R., Tarokh, L., & Carskadon, M. A. (2018). An update on adolescent sleep: New evidence informing the perfect storm model. Journal of Adolescence, 67 , 55-65.
• Freeman, S., Marston, H. R., Olynick, J., Musselwhite, C., Kulczycki, C., Genoe, R., & Xiong, B. (2020). Intergenerational effects on the impacts of technology use in later life: Insights from an international, multi-site study. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17 (16), 5711.
• Patrick, S. W., Henkhaus, L. E., Zickafoose, J. S., Lovell, K., Halvorson, A., Loch, S., … & Davis, M. M. (2020). The well-being of parents and children during the COVID-19 pandemic: A national survey. Pediatrics ,  146 (4).
• Sweller, J., van Merriënboer, J. J., & Paas, F. (2019). Cognitive architecture and instructional design: 20 years later. Educational Psychology Review, 31 (2), 261-292.
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Science News Explores

Let’s learn about why schools should start later.

Most U.S. high schools start before 8:30 a.m. — too early, according to experts

When school times start later, teens tend to feel better and do better in school.

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By Maria Temming

January 17, 2023 at 6:30 am

One of the hardest things about going back to school after a break is waking up for it. And unfortunately, many schools start too early, according to scientific experts.

The American Academy of Pediatrics says that middle and high schools shouldn’t start before 8:30 a.m. That’s because as people go through puberty, their internal clocks naturally shift . It becomes hard for them to nod off before 11:00 p.m. But teens still need an average of nine hours of sleep per night. So, when they have to get up before the sun peeks over the horizon, they miss out on crucial shut-eye.

Dozing in class is only the most visible of problems cause by this lack of sleep. That sleep now lost to early alarm clocks is vital for helping the body grow and heal from illness or injuries. The brain also loses out on time to process memories. Sleepy teens are more likely to feel anxious or depressed, as well as use drugs or alcohol. And sleeping in on weekends is no replacement for lost zzz’s during the week. Binge-sleeping poses its own health risks .

Some schools have shifted their start times to later in the morning. Researchers are now tracking the impacts. It seems that teens who start school later do get more sleep. They’re more likely to get to class on time and stay awake during the day. They even seem to do better in school .

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Starting schools later leads to less tardiness, fewer ‘zombies’ With extra sleep, teens are less likely to oversleep or feel tired every day, data show. (10/5/2021) Readability: 6.9

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Survey finds U.S. schools start ‘too early ’ Majority of U.S. public middle and high schools start before 8:30 a.m. (9/10/2015) Readability: 6.0

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You may not be able to control when your school starts. But you can try to get the most shuteye — and the most out of it — possible. Find out how healthy your sleep schedule is by  keeping a sleep diary . Track when you wake up and go to bed, as well as daytime activities that can affect sleep — such as exercise, drinking caffeine and napping. This can help you find out whether any part of your daily routine might be making it harder to get enough sleep. Plus, check out these  tips for improving your “sleep hygiene.”

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Why School Should Start Later in the Morning

The CDC weighs in: Early class times are taking a toll on adolescents ’ health and academic performance.

For the first time, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is urging education policymakers to start middle- and high-school classes later in the morning. The idea is to improve the odds of adolescents getting sufficient sleep so they can thrive both physically and academically.

The CDC’s recommendations come a year after the American Academy of Pediatrics urged schools to adjust start times so more kids would get the recommended 8.5 to 9.5 hours of nightly rest. Both the CDC and the pediatricians’ group cited significant risks that come with lack of sleep, including higher rates of obesity and depression and motor-vehicle accidents among teens as well as an overall lower quality of life.

“Getting enough sleep is important for students’ health, safety, and academic performance,” Anne Wheaton, the lead author and epidemiologist in the CDC’s Division of Population Health, said in a statement . “Early school start times, however, are preventing many adolescents from getting the sleep they need.”

In more than 40 states, at least 75 percent of public schools start earlier than 8:30 a.m., according to the CDC’s report. And while later start times won’t replace other important interventions—like parents making sure their children get enough rest—schools clearly play an important role in students’ daily schedules, the report concluded.

While the federal recommendation is making headlines, the data on the potential risks of chronically tired adolescents isn’t new information. Indeed, the research has been accumulating steadily for years, including some recent large-scale studies.

As the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reported in April, the University of Minnesota’s Center for Applied Research and Educational Improvement “finally put to rest the long-standing question of whether later start times correlate to increased academic performance for high-school students”:

Researchers analyzed data from more than 9,000 students at eight high schools in Minnesota, Colorado, and Wyoming and found that shifting the school day later in the morning resulted in a boost in attendance, test scores, and grades in math, English, science, and social studies. Schools also saw a decrease in tardiness, substance abuse, and symptoms of depression. Some even had a dramatic drop in teen car crashes.

Here’s what the research shows: Adolescents’ “internal clocks”—the circadian rhythms that control a human’s responses to stimuli and determine sleep patterns—operate differently than those of other age groups. It’s typically more difficult for adolescents to fall asleep earlier in the evening than it is for other age demographics. And while teenagers are going to bed later, their school start times are often becoming earlier as they advance through middle and high school.

In a landmark study  in 1998 of adolescent sleeping habits, the Brown University researcher Mary Carskadon followed 10th-graders who were making the switch to a 7:20 a.m. start time, about an hour earlier than their schedule as ninth-graders. Despite the new schedule, the students went to bed at about the same time as they did the year before: 10:40 p.m. on average.

Carskadon’s team found that students showed up for morning classes seriously sleep-deprived and that the 7:20 a.m. start time required them to be awake during hours that ran contrary to their internal clocks. Fewer than half of the 10th-graders averaged even seven hours of sleep each night, which is already below the recommended amount. Indeed, Carskadon’s team concluded the students bordered on “pathologically sleepy.”

So, if the science is so strong, what’s getting in the way of changing the policy?

Carskadon, a professor of psychiatry and human behavior, notes that passionate arguments abound on both sides of the debate—just about all of which she’s heard over the years. In some districts, the start times are largely dictated by local transportation companies, with school boards and superintendents contending they lack the funds or authority to change things. Meanwhile, parents are often reluctant to have teens start later, whether because they rely on having older children at home in the afternoons to take care of younger siblings or because they’re concerned that it will interfere with extracurricular opportunities. Indeed, there’s always a vocal chorus warning that later start times will hurt high-school sports.

But none of those worries override the reality that, as Carskadon put it, “everybody learns better when they’re awake.”

Implementing later start times can be feasible without causing major disruptions, as many school districts have demonstrated, Carskadon said. But it requires that all stakeholders commit to what’s often a time-consuming process of finding creative solutions, which, she added, isn’t always easy.

The medical writer and mother of three Terra Ziporyn Snider, who’s emerged as a national advocate for later start times, also cited widespread challenges hindering schools from making the switch. Getting school systems to change takes more than just presenting scientific evidence, said Snider, the co-founder and executive director of the nonprofit advocacy group Start School Later . The organization deploys volunteers to communities that are considering later school start times to bolster grassroots efforts.

“Social norms are at the root of this problem—most people don’t take [adolescent sleep deprivation] seriously and don’t see it as a public-health issue,” Snider said. “That kind of thinking has to change.”

One of the problems facing advocates of later school start times is that the people sympathetic to their cause seldom have the authority to reset the academic clock, Snider said. Parents typically only care about the issue when it affects their own families’ schedules, she said. That means roughly every four years the key players are replaced, and the grassroots efforts have to start from scratch.

“You start talking about changing start times, and people immediately jump to [all kinds of conclusions]. Teens will miss out on sports. L ittle kids will go to school in the dark and get run over by a car. What will happen to my child care? ” Snider said. “A lot of these fears and speculations turn out to be red herrings. The real obstacles are failure of imagination.”

Snider is hopeful that the policy pressures are reaching a tipping point, though, with the help of major voices like the CDC weighing in.

“It’s becoming increasingly embarrassing to say, ‘If we start school later, what happens to my kid’s three-hour soccer practice?’” Snider said. “We have to convince school systems this has to happen for the health of kids. It’s not a negotiable school budget item—it’s an absolute requirement.”

This post appears courtesy of the Education Writers Association.

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Persuasive Essay About Why School Should Start Later

Table of contents:

• Introduction
• Body paragraphs

It’s one of the favoured topics among high school students. You’re tired. After being up late last night, your school day started at 8:30 am this morning, and you want to know if anything can be done about it. Or perhaps you’re an early bird and like the time that school starts in the morning. Well, you can write a persuasive essay, and maybe if it’s good enough, your voice will be heard, either way.

Start off by taking a firm stance with your thesis statement. Whether you feel school should start later in the morning, or should not, you need to figure out why, and the reasons and benefits (or negatives) in your own mind, first of all. Make a quick outline with your statement of purpose at the top, followed by each point you want to make and the evidence you are going to use to support each point. Remember that you can use any evidence you like in a persuasive essay; it need not be restricted to facts and figures, but can be anecdotal, emotive, or statistical. Think of yourself as a politician trying to persuade an audience to vote for him or her.

Introduction examples

Pro: It’s been proven in many studies that teenagers do better with a later start to the day. With this in mind, why do we still start school at 8:30 in the morning?

Con: Starting later in the day at school interferes with parents’ working days, encourages students to stay up late, and would cause problems with after-school practices for sports.

Moving on into the body of your essay, carry on following your outline, setting up each point and presenting your evidence as you go. Have a look at potential titles, too, which should be reflective of your thesis statement.

Body paragraphs examples

Pro: Teenagers in high school should start at about 10 am. This would allow for a leisurely morning, making the day start off less fraught and stressful. A teenager could stay up until midnight or 1 am and still get a decent amount of sleep, which doesn’t happen when they have to wake up at 6:30 or 7 am. Traffic, too, will be more spread out, easing congestion, and students can take the time to get a good breakfast and be really mentally prepared for the day.

Con: Parents worry about getting themselves to work on time even when school starts at 8:30. A lot of working days would have to change significantly for people to get to work on time if high school started at 10 am instead. This could lead to large amounts of business disruption, and possible discrimination against parents for needing more flexible working hours.

Your conclusion is your last chance to leave an impression on your audience, so make it significant and meaningful. Start by briefly reiterating what your points were, and finish with a bang by calling on your audience to take some action in response to your essay.

Conclusion examples

Pro: Starting later results in benefits for teachers, benefits for students, and also for parents. Think about how rested you’d feel if you had a full eight hours or more sleep each night, and how much more you could get done in your day.

Con: A later school start will throw Australian cities into chaos and maybe even cause some parents to face consequences at work. The way things are now is fine, and there’s no need to fix what isn’t broken.

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15 Reasons Why School Should Start Earlier (Top Benefits!)

Chris Drew (PhD)

Dr. Chris Drew is the founder of the Helpful Professor. He holds a PhD in education and has published over 20 articles in scholarly journals. He is the former editor of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education. [Image Descriptor: Photo of Chris]

Learn about our Editorial Process

The debate over school start times often focuses on the many reasons school should start later . However, there are plenty of debate arguments for why school should actually start earlier.

Here are 10 possible reasons why schools should stick with an earlier start time.

• Cuts transportation costs
• Gets students to school faster
• Has benefits for work schedules
• Lets districts pool resources more effectively
• Allows more free time
• Creates academic advantages
• Is safer for travel
• Allows for afterschool jobs
• Establishes a routine
• Prompts a healthy lifestyle
• There are no clear benefits of starting later
• Students don’t see their parents as much
• Allows time for after-school sports
• Negates the need for daylight savings time
• Allows teachers to do more with their day

Starting earlier has benefits for kids of all ages and serves the additional purpose of saving the school district a good amount of money. The rest of this article will discuss the benefits of starting school early.

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Reasons Why School should Start Earlier

1. early start times cost less for schools.

One of the main reasons schools haven’t instituted later start times is the associated costs.

For example, Greenwich school district conducted studies into pushing back start times after reading the evidence supporting later start times. However, they found that any scenario would lead to increased costs. Here was one key finding:

“Pushing every school’s start back by 30 minutes to 90 minutes would involve between 10 and 19 extra buses, requiring an additional outlay each year from approximately $760,000 to some $1.5 million.”

Similarly, staggered bus routes – where high schools start earlier and elementary schools stay the same – would lead to more time for the busses to complete their routes, but would increase costs for insurance, fuel, and wages for drivers.

2. Students can Skip the Traffic

As well as saving the school money on fuel, early morning start times help to avoid the traffic.

Avoiding traffic has abundant benefits. For one thing, it will mean there is less of a chance that the busses and cars will get caught in traffic jams, meaning students will theoretically turn up to class on time more often.

This does, of course, assume that students will make it to the earlier bus and not accidentally sleep in.

However, keep in mind that if everyone starts driving on the roads earlier to get their kids to school, the traffic may shift with the changes in school times, negating this benefit.

3. Has Benefits for Work Schedules

Another good benefit of starting school earlier is that it can blend more effectively with parents work schedules.

For students who can’t be left unattended, parents have to pay out of pocket for daycare or babysitting services if they leave the house well before their child is picked up for school.

An earlier start could mean that parents can get the students to school and then get on with their days – going to work, doing early shopping, and so forth.

Of course, the downside here is that an early start time may lead to an early ending time, which just pushes back the scheduling clashes into the afternoon.

4. It Lets Districts Pool Resources More Effectively

There’s always a need for good bus drivers, and sharing buses is common practice in a school district.

Unfortunately, buses are expensive to run and can only be used for one route at a time. Starting earlier in the morning, particularly for grade students, allows busses to be available for picking up students who have later start times.

If all students began at the same time, the district would need to have buses and drivers available to meet the demand for all those students at the same time.

By giving grade school students an earlier start, the rest of the district has transportation resources available for students.

However, as noted earlier, this would also be associated with higher costs for transit.

5. Allows More Free Time

Between school, jobs, and team practices, students today are swamped with work. This leads to the concept of the over-scheduled child .

While starting early might be a bit of a bummer for them, doing so ensures that they finish earlier, too, allowing them to pursue afterschool activities, manage homework, and still enjoy their free time without feeling like they have no personal time.

By giving children more free time, they may in fact get time to play, be creative, and potentially even get more sleep (Glauser, 2018).

6. You Get More into the Day

Starting early means you can fit more into your day. And while adults often burn out part-way through the day, adolescents can power through well into the afternoon.

As a result, by sending children to school early, we can get them to fit more into their days, and even potentially open up debates about having 4-day school weeks.

This reasoning is likely why schools do start so early, with 93% of high schools and over 80% of middle schools starting prior to 8:30a.m.

(Note: For a counterargument , consider the abundance of evidence showing school-age children’s brainpower is best around mid-morning – see: Dikker et al., 2020).

7. Is Safer for Travel

People advocating for later school starts often point out that sleep deprivation makes early morning driving dangerous for teenagers (Taheri & Arabameri, 2012).

While this evaluation is correct, it doesn’t consider the other side of the proverbial coin: later commutes home from work are also dangerous, especially in urban environments.

Starting school earlier may be able to give students space to drive to and from school with less traffic which could make the streets safer.

8. Allows for Afterschool Jobs

For high school students preparing for the future, an afterschool job is a major part of growing their savings early.

Schools that start earlier are usually finished in time for high school students to pick up a part time job in their local area.

Not only does a job earn them valuable money for college, but it also teaches them discipline and responsibility in a work environment.

9. Establishes a Routine

Establishing a routine is difficult as an adult, much less as a child, but for students of all ages, establishing an “early to bed, early to rise” mentality has numerous health benefits .

It enables students to mentally prepare themselves for the day and set up a routine to transition into adulthood.

Getting up early ensures that students are ready for a bed at a decent time, avoiding some risky situations often associated with detrimental behavior.

10. Prompts a Healthy Lifestyle

Schools starting earlier not only helps students establish a morning routine, but it also benefits their lifestyle as whole.

Students who adapt to getting up early, preparing for the day, and balancing their daily schedule are more prepared for adulthood.

Creating a healthy school-life balance by understanding what’s expected of them, tackling homework, and participating in extra-curricular activities translates to a healthy work-life balance in the future.

11. There’s no Clear Benefit to Starting Later

While there is some scattered evidence of making school start times later, the most extensive systematic review on this topic found there isn’t enough evidence to make start times later.

In other words, if you’re debating the topic of school start times and you’re on the side of earlier start times, make sure you argue at least the point that there’s no need to make start times later.

As Marx et al. (2017, p. 10) argue in their systematic review:

“We cannot be confident about the effects of later school start times.”

Therefore, there needs to be much clearer and far less biased studies on school start times before making school start times later.

12. Students may see their parents more

A study (Hinrichs, 2011) of schools that start later found that late start times lead to less interaction between children and their parents.

The study found:

“…later school start times may be associated with decreased morning interactions between parents and children.” (Marx et al., 2017, p. 43)

An earlier start time, on the other hand, may lead to more interaction because the parents and children will have more evening and afternoon time to spend together.

Here, the assumption is that late start times just mean the children sleep in; while early start times mean the children get up, get their day done, and then can spend some time with their families.

13. Allows time for after-school developmental activities

If school starts earlier and ends earlier, then society can start structuring after-school activities for children that allow for holistic development of children.

This may include structuring mid-afternoon sessions for children’s development in sporting, play, creative, artistic, and musical pursuits.

We could envisage a world where formal schooling ends and students go on to structured activities of their choice associated with pursuing their creative or sporting interests. This may help to raise a society that’s not just focused on academic standards, but also a more holistic experience of the diverse range of human pursuits.

14. Negates the need for daylight savings time

The rationale for daylight savings time is to allow people to have one extra hour of light in the evening during summer.

There is ample debate about the value of daylight savings time. But if students started and ended school earlier, then there wouldn’t be a need to squeeze an extra hour of sunlight into the day for children’s activities.

As a result, we can reduce one more argument about the benefits of daylight savings time.

15. Allows teachers to do more with their day

If teachers can finish their day of work by 2pm, they could schedule extra things into their afternoons.

At the moment, teachers spend their nights preparing classes for the next day. This can make their work-life balance very poor.

But if teachers finish their school day by 2pm, they can spend the next 3 hours preparing their next day’s classes and not bring school work home with them. This will increase their time with their families in the evenings.

Furthermore, as a teacher, I get frustrated that I can never book appointments at the bank or with the dentist because I am always working when they were open. But if I can get off work at 2pm, I can finally get to those appointments.

Transitioning to an early schedule can be challenging for many students, but at the end of the day, it’s often a decision made to benefit the school district as a whole.

Cutting back on transportation costs, pooling resources, and staggering busloads to and from school are some of the main reasons that schools, particularly grade schools, start so early in the morning.

Dikker, S., Haegens, S., Bevilacqua, D., Davidesco, I., Wan, L., Kaggen, L., … & Poeppel, D. (2020). Morning brain: real-world neural evidence that high school class times matter.  Social cognitive and affective neuroscience ,  15 (11), 1193-1202.

Glauser, W. (2018). Overscheduled and glued to screens—children are sleeping less than ever before. Canadian Medical Association Journal, 190 (48). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1503/cmaj.109-5676

Hinrichs, P. (2011). When the bell tolls: The effects of school starting times on academic achievement.  Education Finance and Policy ,  6 (4), 486-507.

Marx, R., Tanner‐Smith, E. E., Davison, C. M., Ufholz, L. A., Freeman, J., Shankar, R., … & Hendrikx, S. (2017). Later school start times for supporting the education, health, and well‐being of high school students: a systematic review.  Campbell Systematic Reviews ,  13 (1), 1-99.

Taheri, M., & Arabameri, E. (2012). The effect of sleep deprivation on choice reaction time and anaerobic power of college student athletes. Asian journal of sports medicine, 3 (1), 15.

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4 thoughts on “15 Reasons Why School Should Start Earlier (Top Benefits!)”

This is so wrong on every level. 1. Sleep is known to be a very important part in learning new things. If students don’t get enough sleep, they wouldn’t be able to learn as effectively, therefore making schools much less effective than they could be. If your argument to that is “student can go to sleep earlier so they get more sleep” you are wrong for the following reasons: A. If they go to sleep earlier, they have less free time(because their day ends earlier). I don’t understand how this one fact gets ignored by literally everyone. B. Sleeping doesn’t work that way. You can’t just fall asleep whenever you want. To fall asleep, you need this hormone called melatonin. This hormone is not produced at will whenever you want to go to sleep. I guess you never understood biology, otherwise you would know that reflexive actions you body does aren’t always up to conscious decisions we make. And some people(like me) are not affected by melatonin pills. C. Insomnia is a thing that exists in some students. For people with insomnia, falling asleep is even harder than it is for most people. So unless schools want to discriminate against insomniacs, they should not expect everyone to come early. D. Since student need sleep to learn better, they probably won’t need as many lessons in each subject every week, making the school shorter(because there are less classes). Though I am not so sure that schools would notice this if it happened. 2. After-school activities would be moved forward if schools ended later. Because that’s when students would be available. In fact, those who participate would probably preform better, since they would be less tired. This seemed pretty obvious to me, but I guess you never thought about it, since you didn’t mention it. 3. Daily routines don’t have to start in the early morning, and a healthy lifestyle doesn’t have to include waking up and going to be early. In fact, it’s probably unhealthy, since sleeping in the natural time when you feel tired is much better for your health than trying to force yourself to fall asleep to early and forcing yourself to wake up with an alarm clock. 4. Those who want to get up early still can, and they can have some free time in the morning before school, at home. As you can probably imagine, waking up and immediately having to get ready quickly to get to school on time is not a pleasant experience. Especially if you woke up late. So starting school later can make morning a lot less stressful.

I think these are plenty of good reasons for schools to start later. Fact: Finland’s education system is the best in the world, and they start later and end pretty quickly, so some of my points actually exist in real life, and show results.(not to say that starting late and finishing early is the main factor in Finland’s education system’s success, but that it obviously isn’t harmful to the students’ school lives, and that they don’t hate school.)

I hope you actually understood that there are plenty of good reasons to move school starting times forward, and that you understand that most people hate waking up early. Though adults do need to wake up early, the same standard should be held against children and adolescents, who’s brains are still developing and need sleep the most.

Good points Yael. The points presented in the article are possible debate points for students to critically engage with, not necessarily gospel… we also have a complementary article presenting some of your arguments against starting school earlier, that is linked to within this piece.

Thanks I needed this for my ap psych assignment

I agree. I am currently doing an assignment in school on why school start times should be changed. One of the biggest reasons I have found is that when teenagers hit puberty their body goes through something called phase delay. This is where their circadian rhythms shift back by about two hours. This means that most teenagers can’t fall asleep until 11pm.

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Exploring what works, what doesn’t, and why.

Teens need more sleep. Why don’t we start school later?

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This story was originally published by KFF Health News and WPLN , Nashville’s NPR station.

High school classes start so early in Nashville that some kids get on buses at 5:30 in the morning.

Just 10 percent of public schools nationwide start before 7:30 a.m., according to federal statistics . But in Nashville, classes start at 7:05—a fact the new mayor, Freddie O’Connell, has been criticizing for years.

“It’s not a badge of honor,” he said when he was still a city council member.

Since his election in September, O’Connell has announced that pushing back school start times is a cornerstone of the education policy he is promoting. He and others around the country have been trying to stress that teenagers aren’t lazy or to blame for getting too little sleep. It’s science.

“All teenagers have this shift in their brain that causes them to not feel sleepy until about 10:45 or 11 at night,” said Kyla Wahlstrom, a senior research fellow at the University of Minnesota in the College of Education and Human Development. She studies how education policy affects learning, and she used to be a teacher. “It’s a shift that is biologically determined.”

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Sleep deprivation in teenagers is linked to mental health struggles, worse grades, traffic accidents, and more. That’s why states including California and Florida have mandated later start times. Individual districts across the country—including some in Tennessee—have made the same change.

But resistance to later starts is less about the science than it is about logistical and financial difficulties, especially with basics like busing.

State Rep.  John Ray Clemmons , a Nashville Democrat, tried to pass  a bill mandating later start times  in 2022.

“I’m starting to experience this with one of my own children,” he said during a committee hearing on the bill. He dug into the biology, including the famous sleep hormone melatonin.

Melatonin makes people feel drowsy. The brain starts producing it when it gets dark outside, and its production peaks in the middle of the night. Adolescents’ brains start releasing melatonin about  three hours later  than adults’ and younger children’s brains, according to the American Chemical Society. When teens wake up early, their brains are still producing melatonin.

“Because of the way adolescents’ bodies release melatonin, waking a teen at 7 a.m. is akin to waking one of us at 4 a.m.,” Clemmons said.

He brought in a local parent, Anna Thorsen, who testified that later start time legislation could protect vulnerable kids like hers.

“My youngest daughter is a freshman who suffers from a rare genetic epilepsy that killed her older sister last year,” she said. “In fact, last March, my youngest daughter had a life-threatening seizure that was partially induced by sleep deprivation.”

State Rep. John Ragan , a Knoxville-area Republican, said almost all the feedback he heard on the bill came from Nashville.

“Go to your school board and tell them to change the rule, change the law, change their start times,” he said. “But to mandate [the rest of the state] do this because of one school board that doesn’t want to listen to their parents?”

Legislative leaders gave the bill one hearing. It didn’t pass into state law.

That leaves Nashville, a city that often calls itself the Silicon Valley of health care, to figure out its own path. O’Connell is now on the case. The mayor has some power over the school budget, which gives him influence in education policy. However, it’s up to the school board to determine start times.

“Early start times, particularly for adolescents, are problematic,” the mayor said. “We also know that making a change—even a 30-minute change—has a lot of logistics.”

A major concern has been busing. Even in normal times, districts use the same buses and drivers for students of all ages. They stagger start times to do that, with high schoolers arriving and leaving school earliest in the day. The idea is that they can handle being alone in the dark at a bus stop more readily than smaller children, and it also lets them get home first to help take care of younger siblings after school.

If high schools started as late as middle and elementary schools, that would likely mean strain on transportation resources. O’Connell said Nashville’s limited mass transit compounds the problem.

“That is one of the biggest issues to resolve,” he said.

Several years ago, Collierville, a district in suburban Memphis, launched a study on school start times. That district serves far fewer students—9,000, compared with  Nashville’s roughly 86,000 .

Collierville officials estimated in the study that busing costs associated with delayed start times could be as high as $1.4 million annually. That estimate assumed the district would need more drivers, more fuel and maintenance, more storage facilities, and additional support personnel—for example, an additional dispatcher and mechanic.

Despite that, the district did push back high school start times in 2018.

O’Connell said one of the concerns he has heard from parents is financial, such as that they need help with family-run businesses or they need their students to help generate household income at other jobs after school lets out.

The  National Sleep Foundation , a nonprofit that advocates for later start times, conducted a 2022 survey of parents, teachers, and other adults that found that only about one-third of the parents who responded wanted later starts. Adults as a whole and teachers responded slightly more favorably, but less than 40 percent of each group supported delaying the day.

A National Education Association  article from 2022  found that many parents who oppose later start times don’t necessarily doubt the science; they’re concerned about scheduling.

Wahlstrom, the education researcher, said she fears parents underestimate how important sleep, especially on weeknights, is to brain development and academic performance.

“Sometimes both parents and teens think that they can just catch up on their sleep on the weekend. That is a total false assumption,” said Wahlstrom, who equated sleep to food for the brain. “It’s like, ‘OK, we’re going to deprive ourselves of adequate food three days out of the week, but then we’re going to gorge on food on the weekend.’ That’s not healthy.”

She explained how a lack of sleep can impede scholastic success: The brain shifts memory into long-term storage during deep sleep, so missing out on that rest means retaining less material.

But—perhaps more importantly—sleep helps teenagers improve their mental health. U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has been raising alarm bells about youth mental health, noting that a third of teenagers overall and half of teenage girls have reported persistent feelings of hopelessness.

And Wahlstrom said teen sleep deprivation leads to worse mental and behavioral health, which can affect the whole family. She and her team conducted a study funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on the effects of later start times on ninth to 12th graders by surveying 9,000 students at eight high schools in Minnesota, Colorado, and Wyoming from 2010 to 2013. They found students who got at least eight hours of sleep were less likely to report symptoms of depression.

“We do know that there is greater use of drugs, cigarettes, and alcohol when a teen is getting less than eight hours,” she said. “We also know that there is a significant link between teenage depression and any sleep amount that is less than eight hours.”

More than  92 percent of parents  surveyed in a Minnesota school district as part of one of her earlier studies responded that their teenager was easier to live with after the later start time went into effect.

“Many parents have anecdotally told me that their child is a different child. They are able to speak with them at breakfast. They are chatty in the car. They don’t have moody episodes and fly off the handle,” she said. “The parents are just saying it’s remarkable that this has made such a change in their child’s life and their family dynamics.”

Top image: pixelheadphoto / iStock

This article is from a reporting partnership that includes  WPLN  and KFF Health News.

KFF Health News  is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about  KFF .

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Distracted students and stressed teachers: What an American school day looks like post-COVID

Pandemic in rearview, schools are full of challenges – and joy. step inside these classrooms to see their reality..

After a day full of math and reading lessons, third grader Ashley Soto struggles to concentrate during a writing exercise. She’s supposed to be crafting an essay on whether schools should serve chocolate milk, but instead she wanders around the classroom. “My brain is about to explode!” she exclaims. 

Across the country, fourth grade teacher Rodney LaFleur looks for a student to answer a math question. He reaches into a jar filled with popsicle sticks, each inked with the name of one of his students. The first student’s name he draws is absent. So is the second. And the third.

Principal Jasibi Crews goes through her email: She has seven absent employees and too few substitutes to fill in. She texts a plea to a group chat – are any coaches or support staff available to fill in? Dozens of children could be without teachers today if she doesn’t come up with a plan. 

These recent moments from public schools thousands of miles apart reveal a troubling fact confronting educators, parents and students: More than three years after the COVID outbreak began, some children are thriving but many others remain severely behind . This reality means recovering from COVID could be more costly, time-consuming and difficult than they anticipated, leaving a generation of young people struggling to catch up.

This isn’t what lawmakers and education leaders had envisioned. Many were hopeful the 2022-23 school year would be the one when things would return to normal – or, at least, closer to what they were like pre-pandemic. Schools were brimming with money to test new ways to accelerate learning and hire more staff. The new hires and the educators who stuck things out were determined to help kids make progress. There was no longer a health emergency.

USA TODAY education reporters spent six months observing elementary-school students, teachers and principals at four public schools in California and Virginia and asked them to keep journals to better understand the post-COVID education crisis and recovery. Districts in California and Virginia stayed remote for longer than those in many other states. Virginia also had some of the sharpest declines in test scores in the country. 

What the reporters observed and data confirms: Kids are missing more class time than before the pandemic because parents’ attitudes about school have changed. Educators encountered students who are severely behind in reading and math yet can hardly sit still after three years of shape-shifting school days. School administrators discovered that a deluge of cash doesn’t go very far in filling jobs too few people are willing to do. Staff shortages and experiments with new curriculum – sometimes intended to cram several years of lessons into one – collided with the everyday problems of many public schools: children and families without enough food or a consistent, safe home life. 

To tell this story, USA TODAY reporters cataloged moments they witnessed while visiting schools at different hours and days. What follows is a reconstructed timeline based on reporting that began last fall and an approximation of the challenges schools and students face on any given day. 

Teachers find new ways to cope with stress 

After rotating through sets of ab saws, leg lifts and battle ropes, a sweaty but grinning Daisy Andonyadis leaves her 6 a.m. high-intensity interval training class early so she can make it to school on time. Equipped with a piece of her mom's homemade Easter bread, Andonyadis – or Ms. A, as students and colleagues call her – is ready to start the school day. 

Ms. A, 32, started doing the class more regularly this school year to deal with the stress of teaching. She almost quit when she first started at Cora Kelly School for Math, Science and Technology in Alexandria, Virginia, six years ago, overwhelmed by the pressure to do everything perfectly. “Just being able to breathe – the exercise really helps with that,” she says. 

Educators’ mental health has significantly worsened since the onset of the pandemic: Nearly 3 in 4 teachers in a survey last year reported frequent job-related stress, compared with a third of working adults overall. More than a quarter of teachers and principals said they were experiencing symptoms of depression.

Later, now showered and nibbling on her bread, Ms. A kicks off the school day as she always does: with a lesson on social and emotional skills. Kids move magnets with their names on them to emoji-like faces representing different emotions. Each classroom at Cora Kelly has one of these posters, and teachers and kids alike reposition their eponymous magnets throughout the day as their moods change. Today, lots of kids put their magnets on “tired.” 

There aren’t enough substitute teachers

Principal Jamie Allardice has many items on his day’s to-do list: preparing for state testing, planning for next school year and attending to the varying needs of school staff.

It will all have to wait.

Like Principal Crews, Allardice has trouble finding substitutes at times. So he’ll be filling in for a kindergarten teacher at Nystrom Elementary School in Richmond, California.

Most of the country’s public schools reported last year that more teachers were absent than before the pandemic, and they couldn’t always find substitutes when needed. The substitute teacher shortage predates COVID – and it’s getting worse, particularly at low-income schools . 

Allardice anticipates spending the day teaching the school’s youngest kids how to read sentences like “Is the ant on the fan?” and “Is the fat ant in the tin can?”

Everyday reminders of the pandemic’s effects 

Circles under her eyes, fourth grade teacher Wendy Gonzalez speedwalks into E.M. Downer Elementary in San Pablo, California, ahead of the first bell. The hallways are lined with student work. “My goal for this year is to actully learn,” one sheet reads, with the misspelling, “because I didn’t learn last year.” 

Another wall displays photographs Downer sixth graders took during the pandemic as an ever-present reminder of the damage inflicted by the pivot to remote learning. Above pictures of an empty tetherball court, a dog sitting on a stoop and a frog in darkness looking up to light, one student wrote, “We had to go to school at home for about 13 months.”

Ms. G, 45, who has taught for 19 years in the West Contra Costa Unified School District, including three at Downer, is in a hurry to see what condition her class is in after a substitute filled in the two days she was absent last week. She had a ministroke in March, which she blames in part on stress from teaching this year. 

In her classroom, her copy of a new Spanish textbook, "Caminos al Conocimiento Esencial,” is on her desk next to a set of Black history flashcards, a San Francisco Giants bobblehead and a can of Sunkist. On top of all the other academic targets her students must meet this year, the principal and literacy coach want her to test new lessons for teaching kids how to read and write in Spanish. 

“If I didn’t love my community I would be gone,” says Ms. G says after taking a seat. Notes of thanks and praise are tacked onto a bulletin board next to her. 

If I didn’t love my community I would be gone .

Principals have to be ‘there for everyone’

As part of her morning rounds, Principal Crews, 45, stops by a fourth grade classroom in the middle of a lesson on future careers. 

She notices a boy’s face is swollen and pulls him to the side. She feels his forehead, asks him if he’s feeling OK, if he was playing out near the poison ivy. He says he was playing there and it feels like a mosquito bit his face. She escorts him to the school nurse. 

Crews worked for more than 15 years in Virginia and California schools before becoming principal of Cora Kelly six years ago. She knows every student by name, greeting each one as they arrive at school. She’s also keenly attuned to each child’s individual needs on any given day – whether it’s for clothes or a first-aid kit.

Cora Kelly uses a framework known as a multitiered system of support, which is a fancy way of saying it works to address the core issues, in and out of the classroom, that may be affecting a child’s behavior or academic performance. That can mean home visits if a student misses a lot of school or help from a social worker if a child needs shoes or a screening. 

It’s emotionally grueling but gratifying work, Crews says, as is the job of supporting her own staff’s mental health.

“The hardest part of being an administrator has been coming back and making sure (the teachers) were OK so they could be there for the kids,” Crews says. “I wasn’t prepared for the tremendous emotional strain that that’s had on me. I had to be there for everyone, to make sure to take care of them so they could take care of the kids.”’

Rewarding good behavior

Ding. The students in Ms. A’s class are familiar with this chime. It means their teacher has given one of them a point using an app called Class Dojo that tracks their behavior. It has other functions, too, such as managing homework and communicating with parents.

Throughout the day, soft chimes signify when Ms. A has given a student a point. She rewards all kinds of things – being quiet, sitting nicely, getting an answer right, helping a classmate, simply attending. At other times, a different noise erupts when she’s deducting points. Maybe a kid wasn’t listening or following instructions. Maybe two students got into a tiff. 

Kids with lots of Dojo points can exchange them for prizes such as a gift card to Chick-fil-a. These incentive systems, Ms. A says, help reinforce the behaviors and habits – from respecting others’ physical space to coming to class on a consistent basis – that many students failed to learn because of remote schooling.

Kids’ attention spans have shrunk

Ashley and her classmates at Cora Kelly are in math class with the other third grade teacher. An assistant is out, the teacher announces, so the kids have to work independently while she consults with small groups. 

Today’s lesson is on imperial measuring units for liquids – gallons, quarts, pints, cups – and the teacher says she has a story that will help them memorize valuable information for their upcoming state math tests. The story is called The Kingdom of Gallon, she explains: The kingdom has four queens – in other words, four quarts. Each queen has a prince and a princess – two pints. Each prince or princess has two cats – two cups. 

Kids proceed to cut and paste pictures of different items – a gallon of paint, a carton of milk – onto papers with labels for the unit. Many, including Ashley, are distracted. She spins her notebook around a pencil. One of her knees bobbles from left to right. She gets up to tap a pencil on the table, to the projector to wave her hand under the camera. She yawns and plays with her shoe. 

Teachers and parents nationwide report kids’ attention spans are even shorter since the pandemic, perhaps in part because it led to unprecedented amounts of screen time among children . Educators strive to make lessons engaging but kids can’t always concentrate, especially when there’s only one adult in the classroom.  

Ashley pastes an image of a large water bottle under the wrong label – gallon when it should be quart. She quickly realizes it’s a mistake and tries to unstick the image. Ashley, who in her spare time loves drawing and making jewelry and collecting rocks, is careful to reposition the square so it doesn’t cover the face of a girl displayed on the worksheet. 

No multiplication charts allowed

Mr. LaFleur tells the class they'll review skills for a state math exam that will cover multiplying, long division and fractions. Jada Wilson groans when he says they can’t use multiplication charts on the test.

Jada, 10, has improved on fractions and expanded division this year but worries how she’ll do without the aid. She began fourth grade with the skills of a kid halfway through second grade, LaFleur said, but has made up most of that ground. 

Jada’s progress is an exception: Other students’ scores moved backward mid-year. 

“I really questioned myself and my teaching. It can’t get any worse than that feeling. But it helps to look at students like Jada who’ve grown each time,” LaFleur says. 

I really questioned myself and my teaching. It can’t get any worse than that feeling. But it helps to look at students like Jada who’ve grown each time.

Missing class instead of making up for lost time

As Mr. LaFleur’s class begins a reading lesson at Nystrom, several seats are empty. One of them belongs to Jayceon Davis. 

Jayceon’s mom, Georgina Medrano, works nights and occasionally gets home at 2 a.m. Sometimes she dozes off after waking her kids, and they don’t make it to school on time. Jayceon said he is sometimes confused doing his homework because he misses the lessons and hasn’t turned much of it in. 

For kids who are already behind this school year, every minute of learning this year was critical, but far more for students who missed more school days than before the pandemic. Chronic absenteeism – generally when kids miss more than 10% of the school year – increased in more than 70% of schools nationwide last school year, federal data shows.

Jayceon began the year with low test scores in reading and math, unbeknownst to Medrano, who says she’s frustrated no one told her about it at the beginning of the school year. “He reads to me at home, so I don’t understand how he’s behind,” she says.

Medrano says she also knew nothing about Jayceon’s missing assignments until March, when she got a text from LaFleur, who says he tried several times early in the school year to call Jayceon’s mom about the homework with no success. Then he gave up, hoping she would see notes sent through the school’s online messaging system. She, like many parents this year, didn’t have a real sense of how their kids were doing in school.

Reading, writing and riding

Ashley, like many kids in her class, has never ridden a bike without training wheels. Today in P.E. class, she and the other novices learn on a special bike designed without pedals. The purpose: to learn how to balance.

It takes a while, but before the end of class Ashley, her long curls streaming behind her, manages to glide for 10 seconds without touching her feet to the ground. She graduates to the stationary bike.  

She’s thrilled.

It may have nothing to do with phonics or probability or photosynthesis, but this learning matters, too. It’s the kind of lesson that was impossible to replicate during the pandemic, and one that students seem to enjoy most. 

Turkeys and monkeys

It’s just before recess and lunch in Ms. A’s class. She issues constant reminders to pay attention and be quiet. Yet some students lie on the ground, chit-chatting. Others make animal noises, gobbling like a turkey and grunting like a monkey. 

Ms. A moves her magnet on the classroom’s mood chart to “annoyed.”

Eventually she says to the group: “ I think we need to refresh. Everyone’s a little tired. And it’s Fri-Yay! But we are here to learn.” 

One boy sneaks out to get a pack of Gushers candy from his backpack hanging near the classroom door. With a smirk, Ms. A orders him to hand the gummies over, saying she doesn’t want him to get a sugar high. 

It’s the kind of thing she’s now able to brush off, a skill she didn’t have as a new teacher. She ignores children who are bickering, keeping her voice gentle and smooth as she delivers instructions. 

Despite all the distractions, she successfully engages most of the children in a game that quizzes them on their reading skills. 

Phonics time

Gathered at a half-moon-shaped table in the back of Lisa Cay's third grade classroom at Sleepy Hollow Elementary in Falls Church, Virginia, four students sound out rhyming words – search and perch, dead and lead – as they review phonics skills ahead of the state's reading tests. It's one of countless intensive phonics sessions these and other elementary schoolers have had this school year amid a renewed push for a more scientific approach to reading instruction partly in response to learning gaps deepened by the pandemic . 

Mrs. Cay, 58, then passes each student a copy of “The Wump World,” about creatures who live on an imaginary planet. One by one, they read aloud with the help of Mrs. Cay, who on a small white board, writes words they stumble over – “broad,” for example, and “chief.” After each passage, she reviews the problem word with them. The room is quiet with the exception of this group’s hushed voices, their peers reading independently elsewhere. 

Mrs. Cay hopes the district’s greater emphasis on phonics – and its distancing from an approach that focuses on helping kids dissect a text’s meaning without first showing them how to sound out words – helps boost Sleepy Hollow kids’ literacy. But “it’s going to take a few years” before the effects kick in, Mrs. Cay says. The local school district adopted the new phonics program last school year and started requiring it in the fall. 

New educators consider leaving

Seated at his desk at lunchtime underneath a pennant of his alma mater, University of California, Berkeley, LaFleur says it could take some students as many as five years to catch up to where they should be. He expects just a fifth of his own students to pass the state math test. LaFleur, 25, came to Nystrom in the 2020-21 school year through Teach for America, an organization that places recent college grads in high-needs classrooms.

“This is the only normal I’ve ever known,” he said.

But LaFleur recently decided he wants out. 

Teacher turnover has increased in recent years: More teachers left their jobs in at least eight states after last school year, and educator turnover was at its highest point this year than in the past five years, data shows.

LaFleur hopes he’ll get the new job for which he’s being considered. Otherwise he will return next year to Nystrom, as he wrote in his journal, to face “the same problems, move through the same cycles, and feel the same feelings.”

‘It’s been a long day’

Principal Crews planned an end-of-day assembly for all of Cora Kelly’s students about simple machines such as wheels, levers and pulleys. Given the day’s nonstop rain, which forced kids to have indoor recess, they’re in need of something fun and to channel their energy. But the traveling troupe scheduled to perform at the assembly is running late. 

Whipping out her walkie-talkie, she tells school leaders to prepare to pivot if the troupe doesn’t arrive in time before dismissal. Crews then unzips her black fanny pack – filled with Band-Aids and plastic gloves and Cora Kelly-themed play cash – and pulls out a bottle of Excedrin. Crews takes two. “It’s been a long day,” she says.

Catching up on reading time lost

During a class read along of “Esperanza Rising” for the Spanish portion of Ms. G’s class, students erupt in debate about whether Esperanza’s mother should marry for stability. Valeria Escobedo Martinez, 9, shouts “This is like a telenovela!” The scene reminds her of a TV show she watches at home with her mom, she says.

Even though Valeria says Ms. G’s classroom can be too loud, classroom discussion during reading lessons has helped her make up for reading time she and other kids lost out on during the pandemic. 

“I think I’m still leveling up,” she says. Ms. G says “she’s close” to meeting expectations for reading in English and may shed her “English learner” designation next year..

Ms. G is familiar with students who are behind on reading. She spends most school mornings teaching fourth, fifth and sixth graders how to read words using phonics, which is new to Downer this year. 

Intervention time

It’s time for Ms. A’s students to break out into small classes – enrichment for students who are advanced and intervention for those who are behind. Ashley and about half a dozen of her peers head to reading intervention class, which she spends laughing along with her peers at the teachers’ jokes, earnestly scanning her dictionary and reciting lines from a passage during a group read-aloud. At one point during the read-aloud, she notices the teacher accidentally skipped a paragraph. The teacher commends Ashley for noticing – what if, she asks, I had skipped a paragraph while taking the state reading test? 

Later, as kids independently fill out worksheets, Ashley erects her dictionary as a privacy shield. She doesn’t want others to copy her answers.

Ashley wasn’t always this confident. She needs glasses and while she proudly wears a pair of pink frames now, during the pandemic her vision problems went undiagnosed. Schools usually provide vision screenings but they were one of the services that went away with COVID closures. Her inability to see the screen and understand homework left her feeling frustrated and defiant. 

‘Never going back to normal’

Maria Bustos picks up her son Erick from Ms. G’s class. Pre-pandemic, Bustos may have spent the afternoon on Downer’s campus, helping her son’s teachers or planning a school event with fellow parents. Now, lingering pandemic restrictions don’t allow for her to be as active in the school community as she used to be.

“I feel like we're never going to go back to normal – and not just in schools but in everything and everywhere,” Bustos says. “We used to do a Halloween parade, and even celebrate kids' birthdays by bringing pizza." 

She is optimistic about being able to volunteer next year, though, given she was able to attend Erick’s music performance on campus at the end of the school year and an in-class party three days before the end of school in Ms. G’s classroom. 

I feel like we’re never going to go back to normal – and not just in schools but in everything and everywhere.

Leadership turnover creates further challenges

As the new leader of her school, Ruby Gonzalez, 61, is in the midst of two separate video calls in her office: one about the education plan for a student with disabilities and another that includes other school administrators.

She took over when Downer’s longtime principal, Chris Read, found out he had colon cancer. Read began chemotherapy in March and took a six-month leave to avoid other sickness. After Principal Gonzalez filled in, she tapped Ms. G to take over given her past experience as a vice principal. Ms. G lasted for two days before deciding she didn’t want to abandon her fourth graders. “The kids notice when I’m gone,” she says.

She still helps out often.

Two other substitute principals stepped in months before the end of the school year. One quit after a few days. The other comes a few days a week to help out. It’s unclear who will lead next year. Once Read returns from leave, he will have a new job overseeing visual and performing arts education districtwide, a role he’s long wanted.

Recent data shows that more principals last year quit their jobs than early on in the pandemic.

“This has been one of the most difficult years I think; even more than last year,” Ms. G says. “There’s multiple things: Our principal is out and Ruby’s trying to do the best she can. … And there are new things we're all trying to learn. On top of that there's more work and discipline. The kids are feeling it.”

Not enough time

It’s time for kids in Cora Kelly’s after-school tutoring to be dismissed, but Ashley doesn’t want to leave. She’s eager to master the skill of reading an analog clock. She begs her tutor, the same math teacher she had earlier in the day, to stay longer. 

“I love, love, love learning,” Ashley says.

But it turns out her school year is ending earlier than she may have liked, too, much to Principal Crews’ frustration. Ashley and her family will be traveling to her mom’s home country of El Salvador a week before the last day of school. Experts say absenteeism remains widespread in elementary schools, whose students’ attendance relies on their parents’ decisions and schedules. 

Giving in to a calculator

Jada is stationed in the school cafeteria trying to solve a multiplication problem while she and her younger sister wait for their mother to pick them up from Nystrom’s after school program. She sighs, leans her face on her fist on the cafeteria table and says, “This is too hard!” A few seconds later, she pulls out a calculator to solve the problem.

Despite her growth this year – end-of-year math tests show Jada jumped from having middle-of-second-grade skills to working at a mid-fourth-grade level – she and many classmates are behind where they should be.

Her mom, Michaela Alexander, rushes into the cafeteria to get the girls. Alexander tells Jada she isn’t too worried she’s behind on math: She understands Jada had a very different experience from a lot of kids in elementary school who learned in a classroom setting uninterrupted by a global pandemic. She has faith that the teachers at Nystrom will help her catch up. 

‘She’s better than me’

At her small white trailer in a mobile home park in San Pablo, Valeria, her mom, Maira Martinez Perez, and her grandma, who is visiting from Mexico, sit on separate benches next to each other in a tidy combined living room and kitchen. It’s the same home in which Valeria would pull out her Google Chromebook each morning, log onto school and start the day with jumping jacks to loosen up, as instructed by her teacher, when school shifted online.

Just as Downer pivoted to remote learning, Valeria’s mother lost her job cleaning at another school. Now her mother is working again, and though a kid herself, Valeria has taken on some of the care of her younger sister Itzel. Valeria is sometimes interrupted by the 5-year-old when she tries to read at home.

Itzel peeks out from the only bedroom in the home closed off by a sliding door. 

At school, “she’s better than me,” Valeria says of her sister. 

No pandemic interrupted Itzel’s schooling.

Story editing by Nirvi Shah

Watch CBS News

How schools' long summer breaks started, why some want the vacation cut short

By Aliza Chasan

June 11, 2024 / 7:00 AM EDT / CBS News

As summer nears, schools across the country have ended for the year or will soon let out for a lengthy break. Most adults work through the summer, but thanks to outdated medical beliefs, a convergence of rural and city calendars, and educational reforms, kids today enjoy summer vacations. 

Schools didn't always have such a long summer break, Ken Gold, dean of education at the College of Staten Island, City University of New York, said. In the early 19th century, schools in cities were typically open year round while schools in rural areas typically had two terms, one in the winter and another in the summer. 

"By the end of the 19th century, it hasn't quite converged on what we have now, but the writing is on the wall," said Gold, author of "School's In: Summer Education and American Public Schools."

How did school summer vacation start?

School was a year-round event in colonial times, said James Pedersen, school superintendent and author of "Summer versus School: The Possibilities of the Year-Round School." Even as late as 1841, some schools in Boston and Philadelphia were having class 240-250 days a year. 

Most K-12 public schools now are in session for only 180 days a year, according to a Pew Research Center analysis.

While the length of the school year is relatively consistent across states today, there were wide variations in the early 19th century. At the time, schools in cities were typically open year round while schools in rural areas typically had two terms, one in the winter and another in the summer, Gold said. Schools in rural areas had far fewer days of class than schools in cities. 

Many people incorrectly believe the agrarian myth of summer vacation that children took a break from school during the summer to help their parents in their fields and farms, Gold said. While older students in rural areas did take time off from school in the summer to help their parents out, the most intensive labor was during the spring planting and fall harvesting seasons. 

The shift to incorporate a lengthy summer vacation into school calendars began in the late 1800s and early 1900s, Pederson said. 

As summer heat hit cities, people with means were leaving cities to summer in the mountains or at beach resorts, Gold said. 

"It's not like these families were sending their kids to the public schools in large numbers, but typically they were running them," Gold said. "And so you begin to have kind of a movement away from the summer because people aren't around — some of the folks who matter and are making the decisions about the schools."

Rural schools began to mimic the structure of the city school year — opening for longer periods of time while also eliminating the summer terms, Gold said. 

Some of the changes came down to educational reformers, who viewed summer terms as weaker academically and also thought the school year in rural areas was too short. They also wanted teachers to spend time training and developed programs for them in the summer. 

Lingering medical notions   about overtaxation dating back to the late 18th and early 19th century also played a role, Gold said. Even though science moved away from this by the late 19th century, Gold said that it became ingrained in a lot of people's minds that "too much use of the mind would lead to physical and mental debility.  

Why lengthy summer vacations are still around

Schools use summer break to make repairs to buildings. Some school buildings are also not outfitted with the air conditioning that would be needed to keep kids in class over the summer months. Around 36,000 schools nationwide need heating, ventilation and air conditioning updates, the Government Accountability Office found in a 2020 report , the most recent statistics available. 

Joseph Allen, director of Harvard University's Healthy Buildings Program, last year explained to CBS News that many schools were built to retain heat . 

"The climate's changing fast and our buildings are not. Our buildings are not keeping up," Allen said then.

Teachers also may not be prepared to give up summer breaks. Part of the profession's lure, for some, is the way the schedule is structured each year, Steele said. 

"So I could imagine that moving toward a year-round model could exacerbate some recruitment and retention problems," she said.

Outside schools, there's also an economic barrier to ending or shortening the summer break. 

"Entire industries are around summer breaks — think about teen employment , summer camps, vacations, back-to-school sales, everything is there," said Pederson. "It's really hard to undo that."

Pederson and Gold both attributed the ongoing use of a lengthy spring break to tradition. 

"People's practices now of recreation and leisure in the summer are pretty powerful barriers, I think, to change," Gold said.

David Hornak, who's a school superintendent in addition to being the executive director of the National Association for Year-Round Education, said most parents and guardians went to school on a traditional academic calendar, and they want their children to have the same opportunities as they did in the summer. 

"So much has changed over the last 130 years except for the school calendar most commonly used across the nation," Hornak said.

Will summer breaks ever get shorter?

Summer break is already shorter in some schools across the country following a balanced calendar. Hornak's district has largely followed the balanced calendar model, which used to be called the year-round model, for the last 30 years. 

"The year-round education, or what we're now terming balanced calendar education, is built on the premise that the school year continues to be 180 school days, but that those 180 school days are used more efficiently across the calendar year," Hornak said. 

Most balanced schools start in early August, then take some time off mid-fall, at Thanksgiving, around Christmas and New Year's, in the middle of the winter, in the middle of spring and around Memorial Day weekend. The summer break of a traditional school is shortened, with the days reallocated to give time off at other times. 

Both of Michigan parent Kellie Flaminio's children go to school in Hornak's district. Flaminio, who also works for the state Department of Education, said she sought out a district with balanced calendar schools, even though she herself went to schools with more traditional academic calendars. Flaminio said that she and her husband both work full time, so the balanced calendar worked better for their schedules.

"Having to pay child care for the weeks that the kids aren't in school, it was a little easier to have it more spread out versus that large chunk at one time," she said.

The mom said it's also been great for her son, now a sophomore in high school, and her daughter, now a sixth grader, who have never commented about feeling like they're missing out by not getting a 12-week summer vacation.

"Honestly, I think they get kind of bored and are ready to go back to school by the time we go," she said.

Around 4,000 schools in the U.S. follow a balanced calendar model, representing about 10% of the total student population, Hornak said. His organization advocates for districts around the county to use their 180 days of school each year more efficiently.

According to Hornak, balanced calendars lead to increases in student achievement and a reduction in summer learning loss. They can also help with staff retention because it gives teachers more frequent breaks. 

Those regular breaks also offer opportunities for schools to pre-teach or re-teach concepts to students who might need help. Enrichment can also be offered to advanced students during those intersessions.

Pederson said school year schedules don't need to be one size fits all; they can be individualized based on the student to match their ability level. He also noted that schools are supposed to prepare children for future professions, and that giving them 10-12 weeks off for the summer hinders that preparation.

"If we're trying to get them prepared for what the future holds, it really doesn't fit that, right? Because no other profession has off that amount of time," he said.

Aliza Chasan is a Digital Content Producer for "60 Minutes" and CBSNews.com. She has previously written for outlets including PIX11 News, The New York Daily News, Inside Edition and DNAinfo. Aliza covers trending news, often focusing on crime and politics.

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