For Whom the School Bell Tolls - school schedules tailored to students' sleep needs

School Administrator, March, 1999 by Millicent Lawton

Schools modify their start times based on the latest research on adolescent sleep needs

The notion of changing the time that school starts in the morning so inflamed parents and community members in the Fayette County, Ky., public schools last year that in the space of three months the school board voted three separate times--reversing itself twice--before it made up its mind.

What the board finally settled on was to ring first bells one hour later for high school and middle school students and to have elementary students start their day up to 90 minutes earlier. As unexpected as the firestorm of controversy, perhaps, was one of the chief reasons the board made the change: cutting-edge research showing teen-agers need to get more sleep than they do now.

The fact that the altered schedule, which took effect last fall, was subject to controversy among parents and others illustrates how much of a debate school district officials can kick up when they consider altering the very structure of the day shared by schools and families. The contentiousness can turn school board or task force meetings into shouting matches. It even prompted one group opposing Fayette's proposed bell change to take out a newspaper ad picturing a school bus about to run over a young child whose new schedule had him waiting in pre-dawn darkness.

But a shift to later start times for teen-age students is an issue that a small but growing number of school systems are choosing to confront, motivated in large measure by sleep research. Districts from Virginia to Alaska have made or have contemplated a change to the hour at which they ask students to appear for school.

Just last November, the school board in Montgomery County, Md., a 127,000-student district in suburban Washington, D.C., unanimously endorsed the superintendent's recommendation to solicit volunteer schools to pilot test a split high school schedule that would allow some students to start school at 7:25 a.m., as they do now, and others to begin an hour and 50 minutes later, at 9:15 a.m.

Sleep-Deprived Teens

The sight of groggy teens ignoring their alarm clocks or staggering, coffee in hand, into school only to catnap on the desktops is a familiar, if vexing, one to parents and teachers alike. Now, scientists are offering clinical explanations for why America's adolescents seem sleep-deprived (see related story, page 8).

Researchers have found that, contrary to popular belief, adolescents need more sleep, not less, than children and adults. That means about nine hours, ideally, for adolescents, or about eight at a minimum--a tall order for students who may have after-school jobs or hours of homework at night. And puberty makes it doubly hard to get that kind of shut-eye, ushering in a change to sleep patterns that prompts teen-agers to fall asleep late and rise late.

Given the data that shows many teens only go to sleep after 10 or 11 p.m., they shouldn't awaken before about 7:30 a.m.--about the time many schools expect them to be sitting in their first-period class. If sleep researchers--and many teenagers--had their druthers. school would start closer to 9 a.m.

Sleep deficits often are overlooked or dismissed as inconsequential. But a lack of sleep can impair students' mood, memory and ability to pay attention and put them at risk for nodding off behind the wheel of a car, the researchers point out. Some studies have noted that students getting less sleep also obtain worse grades, but hard data on how much student achievement improves if start times are moved later is not yet available.

Pioneer Schools

Many school districts are finding the research persuasive enough, though, to risk the wrath of parents, teachers and community members by considering a start-time change. But those districts soon discover that any planned adjustment of school start times can become entangled in issues such as bus transportation, interscholastic athletics, student jobs, before- and after-school child care and even juvenile crime.

The epicenter of the shakeup around school bell times seems to be Minnesota. In 1994, the Minnesota Medical Association sent a letter to all of the state's local superintendents urging that their districts eliminate early school starting hours in recognition of adolescents' biological need to sleep longer and later. Then, in 1997, the state legislature considered, but did not ultimately approve, a bill that would have prohibited high schools and junior highs from starting before 8 a.m.

To date, the sleep research has influenced at least five Gopher State districts to change their start times, and others are considering doing so. The first to make such a change was the 6,800-student Edina, Minn., district, which shifted its high school start time an hour later in the 1996-97 school year. The district has seen a decline in tardiness and absenteeism as a result. At the end of this school year, Edina officials should have enough information to determine how the changes have affected student achievement. (See related story, page 10.)