Later start times linked to student achievement

Naperville North junior Yi Qiao sat alone in the corner of the library. The halfway bell rang for her fourth period lunch hour, and she still hadn’t touched her sandwich.

Qiao crammed her schoolwork now in an attempt to save hours later. She hadn’t slept more than five hours last night, which was becoming far too typical. For Qiao, four to five hours is her average.

And for the past year, this has been her routine.

“Last year, I fell asleep a lot in class and that made me miss a lot of things that we covered,” Qiao said. “I had to work even harder at home to make up for it. It led to a cycle of sleep deprivation.”

Qiao’s struggle matches one shared by students across the country.

A new study conducted by the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that middle schools and high schools delay the start of classes to 8:30 a.m. or later.

The study, called “Insufficient Sleep in Adolescents and Young Adults: An Update on Causes and Consequences,” said that at the start puberty, the biological sleep-wake cycle of adolescents is pushed back, making it difficult for teens to fall asleep before 11 p.m.

With District 203 buses picking up students as early as 6:20-6:25 a.m., many students are not able to get the recommended hours of sleep.

According to NNHS nurse Pamela Seubold, sleep greatly affects students’ ability to perform well in school.

“We usually recommend between nine and ten [hours of sleep],” Seubold said. “That is what you need to be productive [and] for your body to be well rested.”

NNHS Principal Kevin Pobst agreed that while there should be no price tag on a student’s health, he doesn’t see a change happening at NNHS.

“The reason we start school when we start is driven by the fact that we have after-school activities and athletics,” Pobst said. “That’s it. You heard it. End of story.”

Pushing back school start times would mean later after school practices, club meetings and rehearsals, according to Pobst.

“I don’t see [our] school starting any later as long as we have the same number of minutes in the day for instruction and the very robust activities and athletic programs that we do,” Pobst said.

Joanna Wilson, NNHS Social Science teacher and girls track coach, said that pushing back practices would not benefit the students.

“If we started a later school day, that would push practices even later,” Wilson said. “Then, you are still back at that same situation. They’re going to school later, but they might be staying up later.”

According to Director of Transportation Elizabeth Myers, another issue that concerns District 203 with later start times is the busing schedule.

“Our problem in our school district is that we have a three-tier system,” Myers said. “We’re picking up the high school [students], then junior high [students] and then grammar school [students]. There’s really no time in between.”

However, William Wiesbrook, Naperville Central High School principal, is critical of the three-tier system.

“We are the only two high schools that I know of that bus students to school almost an hour before class starts,” Wiesbrook said. “Other school districts like [Indian Prairie School] District 204 and [School District 200] Wheaton, just to name a few, have a different system that allows kids to be dropped off fifteen minutes before class starts. I found that very unusual.”

Although some students said they could easily go to bed earlier than 11:00 p.m., most have too much homework and too many commitments. Instead, they sacrifice sleep to keep up.

Wilson encourages kids to maximize their time at school so they can finish their homework and go to bed earlier.

“I think every kid should have a study hall,” Wilson said. “That would allow them to get ahead in their work so they’re not trying to stay up until 1:00, 2:00 a.m.”

NNHS senior Liron Saletsky is taking a study hall, but she believes it is not enough.

“Right now, I’m on 6.5 hours [of sleep], but ideally eight hours would be awesome,” Saletsky said. “I feel like if I got a couple extra hours of sleep, I would perform even better in everything.”

According to Wiesbrook, changing the start times would not only affect students and faculty, but the entire District 203 community as well.

“[Changing school start times] would have a ripple effect that would affect thousands of people and families,” Wiesbrook said. “Our district administration looks at our current system [and thinks] ‘let’s just keep it as it is.’”

With District 203 not considering start time changes, Seubold suggests the simplest solution: basic time management.

“There is a lot of things that we can do before we get to the point of saying ‘oops we have to start school at 9:00 a.m. from now on,’” Seubold said. “It’s time management. Those are skills that we really try to work on.”

Qiao only wished the answer was that simple. She rubbed her tired eyes and yawned before packing her textbooks into her backpack. By the time the fourth period bell rang, she finished one of her assignments. And by the time the eighth period bell rang, she rushed to her part-time job.

Despite her efforts, her night would shape up like any other. One day, Qiao hopes that the district will consider starting school later.

“It would finally give me a chance to catch up on sleep,” Qiao said.