Start School Later

So far this summer has been everything I wanted. More learning, more improv, and most of all, more sleep. During the school year classes starts at 7:48 in the morning, which means because of my commute, I have to leave around 6:45. Maybe it's because I perform late on the weekends or maybe because I still allow myself to sleep late on Saturday, but that's early for me. Apparently, it's also too early for my students:

Beginning at adolescence, kids have what’s called a delayed sleep phase, where they start sleep later and sleep later in the morning. And they need plenty—about nine-and-a-quarter hours a night.

The researchers evaluated 201 Rhode Island high school students whose school pushed back its start time from 8 to 8:30. The kids completed a sleep habits survey before and after the time change.

After the delayed start, the percentage of students who said they got at least eight hours of sleep a night jumped from about 16 to 55 percent. Class attendance improved, and there were fewer visits to the health center for fatigue-related complaints. Plus, the number of students who said they felt unhappy, depressed, annoyed or irritated dropped significantly.

This seems especially good when you consider half of being a morning person is genetics and that there are a lot of positive correlations with being a night owl.