California school start times pushed back so kids can get more sleep

California is trying to work with – rather than against – teenagers’ biological clocks

Today's expression: Stay up
Explore more: Lesson #487
July 21, 2022:

A new California law mandates that high schools start the school day no earlier than 8:30 AM and middle schools no earlier than 8:00 AM. This is in an effort to work with teenagers’ biological clocks that naturally tell them to sleep around 11 and wake up around 8. But how will this work logistically? Plus, learn “stay up.”

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Wake up! If you’re a teenager, the alarm comes way too early. But now, California is going to start high school later

Lesson summary

Hi there everyone, I’m Jeff and this is Plain English, where JR and I help you upgrade your English with current events and trending topics. This is Lesson 487, so JR has uploaded all of today’s great content to PlainEnglish.com/487.

Coming up today: teenagers’ biological clocks tell them to sleep around 11 and wake up around 8:00. The problem is, school has already started by then. So legions of teens trudge bleary-eyed to school, struggle to stay awake, and suffer the consequences. Now California is trying to make it just a bit easier on them by starting school later.

In the second half of the lesson, I’ll show you how to use the English expression “stay up.” JR also has a song of the week.

I just want to remind you of the bonus video training I put together earlier this week. The training video is all about being an active learner. You can get that by visiting PlainEnglish.com/active.

Let’s get going.

Starting school later: a good idea?

For many high-school kids in America, and around the world, the alarm goes off around 6:00 or 6:30 in the morning. For me, that was miserable. I had a hard time waking up, getting out of bed, and rushing to the bus stop on time.

As an adult, I’m most alert and most productive at the beginning of the workday. But as a teenager, I struggled to stay awake and to concentrate during those early classes. My high school started class at 7:50. That means, we were at school by about 7:30 each day. I had to get the bus before 7:00, which meant that 6:30 was the absolute latest I could wake up.

This is a problem because teenagers have unique sleep needs at this age. Adolescents’ circadian rhythms shift about two to three hours, so their bodies want to go to bed around 11:00 and wake up around 8:00. So their biology is telling them to sleep longer and sleep later. But their schools are telling them to wake up early.

Now, the state of California is trying to change that, at least a little. A new law says that public schools can start no later than 8:30. Legislators hope this change can let teenagers get more of the sleep they need to function in school.

You learned in Lessons 292 and 293 how important quality sleep is. If teenagers don’t get enough sleep, they can find it hard to stay awake during the day. When they feel sluggish, they choose screen time over being active. They might have behavioral challenges. And most important, they learn less, right at the point in their lives when they should be learning more.

Studies have shown that starting school later can improve teenagers’ lives. You might think that teenagers would respond by just staying up later at night. But that isn’t what happens in practice. Studies have found that later school start times do lead to more sleep on weeknights. And that means teenagers have better attendance at school, they don’t fall asleep as much in class, they get better grades, they are less prone to depression, and they get into fewer car accidents.

So why aren’t more places shifting the starting times? You can chalk a lot of this up to logistics. In the United States, most kids go to school on a bus. And most school districts use one fleet of buses to take elementary, middle, and high school students to school. So that means that some kids have to start early if the buses are going to take everyone to school. Many districts think that it’s safer for older kids to wait for a bus early in the morning, when it might still be dark. That way, the younger kids wait for the school bus when it’s light outside.

Student activities, including sports, also happen after school. So if school starts half an hour later, and if school then ends half an hour later, then there’s less time and less daylight available for sports practices. There are also parents’ work schedules to consider. If all schools started later, parents would struggle to get their kids on the bus before they themselves have to get to work, around 8:00 or 9:00.

Still, some school districts are starting to prioritize kids’ sleep. They recognize that there’s no one start time that will be convenient for every family, so they may as well choose the option that’s best for kids’ health, but still not totally disruptive to the economy.

Next year, California school districts will start high school no earlier than 8:30 and middle school no earlier than 8:00. Legislators in New Jersey and Massachusetts are considering a similar change. A nonprofit organization called Start School Later advocates for later start times around the U.S. I read about one private school in Dubai that starts high school at 9:00, and they have more interest than they can possibly accommodate.

Lucky California

What I would have done to start school at 8:30! That would have been 40 extra minutes in the morning. The thing that surprised me was the studies that showed teenagers actually did sleep that extra time. They didn’t just stay up later during the week.

Thinking back on this now, I remember it was often a real struggle to stay awake in school. It was like that for everyone. I don’t remember what time I went to bed in high school, but I think it was close to 11. And the alarm would be at 6:15 or so. And I remember really struggling to stay awake in school, usually in the morning, but any time.

Not having enough sleep is not fun. I know that now. But at the time, you just have to accept what the school does. We didn’t even realize that there was another way to do it. I hope the kids in California know how lucky they are!

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Expression: Stay up