When Deborah Hornstra enrolled her two children in middle school in September 1999, she was startled to learn that classes in the West Windsor-Plainsboro, New Jersey school district began at 7:35 a.m. In order to get to the school bus on time, they would have to get up at 6 a.m. This seemed extremely early, especially since Hornstra's children, if left to their own devices, would gladly sleep at least three extra hours. She anticipated a tough school year, dragging tired, cranky kids out of bed every day. She wondered whether other parents shared her concern.

She posted a message on a New Jersey community Web site asking for opinions about the school start time and received a flood of responses from other parents, most of whom agreed that the current start time was too early. Many said that they had realized for years that teens have a tough time because of their early school schedules.

Hornstra and another parent, Michelle Brett, began lobbying for a later start time in their district. Their first step was to gather scientific information on teens' sleep needs. One Brown University study found that adolescents need at least as much sleep as they did in childhood: 8.5 to 9.25 hours a night in most cases. But surveys show that only 15 percent of adolescents get 8.5 hours or more of sleep on school nights.

Early school schedules are one reason for this, but biology is also a contributing factor. When children reach puberty, their natural sleep patterns undergo what researchers call a "phase delay." This means that teens tend to fall asleep later and wake up later than they did when they were younger. The typical high school student's natural time to fall asleep is about 11 p.m.—which makes things tough for teens who have to get up at 6 a.m. or earlier to catch a school bus before 7. So perhaps it shouldn't come as a surprise that 20 percent of high school students fall asleep in class.

Does lack of sleep really matter? As the National Sleep Foundation points out, sleep is "food for the brain," and insufficient sleep is harmful to people's health and performance. It can even be lethal. A sleep-deprived person can doze off easily—even while driving. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says that falling asleep while driving is responsible for 100,000 crashes and 1,550 deaths a year. Young drivers are involved in a disproportionate number of these crashes.

A Campaign is Born
Hornstra and Brett met with the school superintendent to discuss the prospect of delaying the school start time. They publicized their cause on their community Web site and posted information on school start time issues. (That Web page is still online [1].) Through the Web site, they collected names of interested parents for a mailing list so that they could easily notify them about new developments. They made presentations at school board meetings, wrote letters to the editors of community newspapers and spoke to local reporters. One wrote a front-page story on their cause. They also obtained permission from the school system to conduct a survey that asked parents, teachers and students about their views.

They soon learned that changing school start times isn't easy. It requires changes in school bus schedules, and it may increase transportation costs. Among other things, it affects extracurricular activities, sports schedules, teachers' work hours, teens' after-school jobs and community use of school facilities. In some instances, the only way to delay school start times for older students without increasing transportation costs is to swap the high school and elementary school start times. The lives of families with younger children may be affected just as dramatically as the lives of families with teens.

In West Windsor-Plainsboro, school officials were not receptive to the idea of swapping elementary and secondary school start times. However, they eventually agreed to delay the secondary school start time by 15 minutes, to 7:50 a.m.

"Most educational professionals are aware of the scientific literature and aware of the problem from their own experience," Hornstra says, "but they look first to the logistical problems and sometimes think that they are overwhelming. Parents and others who want changes to be made should challenge that notion. The goal is not to minimize the labor of administrators. The goal is to do what's best for the kids."

Teens Sleep Later, Across the Country
Several school districts have modified school schedules so that teens don't have to arrive at school until considerably later than the customary start time (which is somewhere between 7:00 and 7:45 in many communities), with favorable results.

The Fayette County, Kentucky school district (the Lexington area) delayed its middle and high school start times by one hour starting in 1999. When educational psychologist Frederick Danner, Ph.D., of the University of Kentucky assessed the impact of the change, he found that students were sleeping significantly longer on school nights and spending fewer weekend hours in "catch-up" sleep (an indicator of sleep deprivation). He also found that that the crash rates of 17- and 18-year-old drivers in Fayette County dropped 15.6 percent after the school schedule change, while those of drivers of the same ages in the rest of Kentucky increased by 8.9 percent. Dr. Danner is careful to note, however, that his research did not prove that the change in school start times actually caused the decrease in crashes; he simply found a correlation.

The Minneapolis school district made an even more drastic change in its school schedule than Lexington did, delaying its high school start time from 7:15 to 8:40 starting in 1997. When University of Minnesota researchers evaluated the impact of this change, they found that students got more sleep after the change and that school attendance improved significantly. They also found a trend (though not a statistically significant one) toward improvement in students' academic grades.

Change Isn't Easy
Although delaying the secondary school start time has benefits, it also exacts a price from families—particularly lower-income families.

University of Maine researcher Gail Downs found that adjusting to changes in school schedules was more difficult for less affluent families than for those with greater resources. In families with limited resources, Downs explains, teens often make crucial contributions to the family's welfare, either by working at paid jobs or by supervising younger children after school. If their schools start and end later in the day, teens are less able to help their families in these ways. In some instances, this can lead to real hardship. For example, if a change in the school schedule means that a teenager can no longer be at home when a younger sibling returns from school, a parent may have to make a difficult choice between quitting a needed job and leaving the young child unsupervised.

The idea of delaying school start times may also meet with resistance from some teens. Often, students actually like early school schedules because of the early dismissal time. For example, in focus groups in Minneapolis, many students reported that they preferred to get up early in order to be done with their school day early, so that they would have enough time for after-school activities, socializing and paid work.

Many teens, however, recognize that early school schedules and lack of sleep can cause problems. As one 14-year-old reported with admirable honesty on an Internet message board, "In every class I'm in, either someone else or myself is sleeping."

In a few communities, students have gotten involved in efforts to change school start times. For example, during an as-yet-unsuccessful effort to delay the high school start time in Montgomery County, Maryland, a group of students from one high school participated in a petition drive. In that community, though, as in most others, the impetus for change has come mostly from parents and professionals, not from teenagers.

Weighing Pros and Cons
Delaying school start times may not work well in every community, but Hornstra believes it's an idea that people in every community should consider. "Things that pertain to the educational mission, such as kids being ready to learn and being taught in the optimal environment—which presumably includes their being awake—should certainly be under discussion," Hornstra says.

Researcher Downs, while recognizing adolescents' need for more sleep, says communities should move slowly on changing schedules, to allow families to make any necessary adjustments. "The impact of a later school start time on the community must be taken into account. If after weighing all the negatives and positives, a school district decides to change the school start time, at least a year should elapse between the decision and implementation of the change to enable all involved to adjust their schedules."

Hornstra and Brett, meanwhile, have decided that 15 minutes of added sleep isn't quite enough. They plan to push their school district to delay the start time another ten minutes, to 8 a.m., and to keep it there permanently.