A Howard County high school student wants school to start later to give busy teens more time to sleep at night.
Teens are often “incapable of falling asleep before 11 p.m.,” Joy Jennifer, a junior at Oakland Mills High School, recently told the School Board.
Instead of starting high school at 7:25 a.m., it should start around 8:15 a.m., she said.
Only 20 percent of adolescents in the nation are getting the recommended nine hours of sleep on school nights, according to a 2006 poll by the National Sleep Foundation in Washington.
The School Board examined the issue but decided against later start times, said Patti Caplan, spokeswoman for the school system.
“During the winter, elementary school kids would have to wait for the bus in the dark,” she said.
“Athletic activities would also have to be bumped back.”
Caplan said pushing the start times back also would present a problem for high school students who have to take care of younger siblings after school. However, Jennifer said, teens are often busy with after-school activities, homework and community service work, resulting in later bedtimes.
“Teens should get between nine and nine and a half hours of sleep,” she said.
But with many of them not going to bed until about 11 p.m., she said, they are not getting enough rest, leading to more stress in their lives.
Jennifer said according to a survey she conducted at her school, about 100 students favored a later start time. According to a profile on the school?s Web site, 1,182 students are enrolled at Oakland Mills.
