BLOG 01 : Should Your School Day Start Later? | Shriya

    

Should School Start Later?

Many people believe schools ought to start later, but what are the advantages of starting school earlier? I do not notice a difference between later and earlier start times for school. Unless your school starts earlier than 8 am, a later start will not improve anything, but will more likely make things worse. 

Students and educators contend that by delaying the start of classes, they would get more sleep. According to my findings,  I’ve found that if school starts later, individuals will just use it as an excuse to stay up longer and put off doing their work more frequently. The majority of people who finish their assignments at the last minute are procrastinators, so if you offer them more time, they'll just hold back more. Even though there might be less tardiness, I think that if school started later, after-school programs would start later as well. Louis Gaillie believes that resuming after-school activities like athletics, theater, and other lessons would be a disadvantage to starting school later. Sports and other after-school activities may already have practices that last until 6:00 p.m. and tournaments that last until 8:00 p.m. These would be further delayed. Students already leave certain afternoon classes at schools in large US states to travel to competitions. If start times were pushed back, the number of days these students would miss school would increase. They may also find themselves with a limited amount of time each day to complete their work. This would force them to stay up later to complete their work, negating the benefits of having a later start time. Even if some teenagers have no extracurricular activities after school, the temptation to stay up later each night because they can sleep in later the next morning exists. Starting school later would merely mean shifting the schedule back. Simply moving things backward won't provide people extra time or sleep. Leigh Ann Morgan asserts that getting more sleep would benefit both physical and mental health, academic performance, and the reduction of teen wrecks. Unless you reduce the amount of time you spend in class, these benefits won't be seen. If not, your schedule is merely being advanced by an hour so that it begins and ends later, so you are still getting the same amount of sleep. 

Parental problems can also arise from school starting late. Most parents drop off their children on their way to work. It might be difficult to get a child who cannot drive to school without making the parents late for work if school started at the same time as they had to go to work. According to the Master of Arts in Teaching guide, it states “Family schedules have been set up to revolve around school schedules. Making a major switch to later start times may pose a challenge for working parents who would have to deal with additional costs of before and after-school care and transportation. Since most parents revolve around their children, changing the schedule would also pose problems for the parents as well as for the students. Additionally, students would have fewer opportunities to receive tutoring and partake in out-of-school activities if they start school later. Gaille states “Many after-school tutoring programs are operated by volunteers that have finite time resources. Changing the school schedule will change their schedule, which may make it difficult to continue providing services during the week. That would push tutoring needs to the weekend, where more students may be less likely to engage with the service”. This demonstrates how it would influence students' ability to receive extra assistance on challenging courses and make them always occupied, even on weekends. If everything is moved around, there might not be time for extracurricular activities because your schedule would rapidly get full and you wouldn't have time for them.

In my opinion, extending school's start time won't result in more sleep. Why delay extracurricular activities if you still plan to attend school during the same hours as before? The earlier you begin, the sooner you can return home. Students who start school at 7:30 in the morning are the ones who are complaining. I think students would get enough sleep and still have plenty of time for after-school activities if school started at 8 or 8:30, but I don't think it should start at 9.  As a result, I believe that starting school too early or too late won't improve anything and will only lead to further issues. 

                                                        Works Cited

Gaille, Louise. “19 Should School Start Later in the Morning Pros and Cons – Vittana.org.” Vittana.org, 28 Aug. 2018, vittana.org/19-should-school-start-later-in-the-morning-pros-and-cons.

Master of Arts in Teaching Guide. “5 Pros and Cons of Later School Start Times.” Masterofartsinteaching.net, 2013, www.masterofartsinteaching.net/lists/5-pros-and-cons-of-later-school-start-times/.

Morgan, Leigh. Pros and Cons of Later School Start Times.

“Studies Support Argument School Should Start Later.” Coppell Student Media, coppellstudentmedia.com/52886/opinions/studies-support-argument-school-should-start-later/. Accessed 2 Oct. 2022.