What If: Late Start

Have you ever thought “What if we had a late start for school instead of getting up so darn early?” Many schools do late start some days of the week if not everyday. Our school day schedule would be drastically different if it were possible for us to have late start.

“I think every single person in this school would benefit from [late start],” said Lilli Heinen, 11.

A late start for our school would probably start between 9am and 10am. People’s morning schedules would change remarkably because everyone is so used to being in a rush in the morning and getting up early. The majority of the student body drives to school each day or gets dropped off, so for people that live a little farther away getting to school on time can be difficult.

“Well, I could probably eat a better breakfast and not speed to school since I live so far away,” said Paige Swanda, 10.

On average, high school-aged kids get about five to seven hours of sleep each night. The healthy amount of sleep for an adolescent is nine and a half hours, so obviously most kids are not getting the proper amount. Part of the problem is also their choice of the time they go to bed, but having a late start at least some days would help greatly.

“People who have early morning practice would benefit from a late start tremendously,” said Heinen.

Student athletes have morning practice quite often during the season- sometimes the practices start as early 5:30am for football. To get ready for morning practices, students are getting up super early to go to their practice and then go straight to a hard day of school afterwards.

“When you have better sleep, you perform better in school,” said Swanda.

One of the downfalls of late start would be that school would get out later: around 4:30pm. This would affect most students’ after school jobs because the drive time to get to their job and the time that school would get out would mess up the schedule for their work hours.

“I know a lot of kids [who] get up super early, around 4am, to do their homework, so if we had late start, those kids would be able to sleep later,” said Heinen.

A good handful of students do get up early to do all their homework because it helps them focus better and get things done. With the late start, those kids would be able to sleep a little longer and still get their work done.

“It is more natural for the human body to wake up when the sun is up,” said Heinen.

In the winter, a lot of kids wake up when the sun is still down, and that does not help with students’ drowsiness. If we had a late start, kids would have the chance to sleep when it’s dark and wake up when the sun does.

“I feel like [the student body] would be really excited about it, but they wouldn’t really think it through and realize that we would have to go later in the day,” said Swanda.

Overall, the student body would appreciate a late start at least once a week, but it definitely has its downfalls. Having a late start would be a huge change for this school and the administration, but it is not impossible. Possibly in the future, we could be seeing a late start a day or two of the week.