Make him go to bed an hour earlier

Steve, you ask for a rational explanation, and making a teen go to bed an hour earlier does sound very rational - however the reason behind changing school start times has to do with changes that occur just during puberty. Although there is a ton of research on this, the research is hidden away in dry scholarly journals and barely read national reports. When puberty hits, adolescents also experience a 90-minute later shift in their circadian rhythm - they don't release melatonin until around 10:30 pm and they continue to release melatonin until around 9am. It's because of this change during puberty - combined with getting up earlier than mother nature intends - that makes our youth sleep-deprived. I agree that they will have to adjust to getting up when they work their first major jobs - but by then they will be out of puberty.

Practices and other after school activities would go until 7pm+

Lazy teachers just want to sleep in

Steve, one of the issues is student nutrition. Teens who are up late with homework/work and have to get up so early for school don't get enough sleep and probably skip breakfast, an important meal for growing kids. There's also the issue of waiting for the bus in extremely cold temperatures in winter in the early morning.

Bren, they get off school at 2.30p. Plenty of time to get their "homework" done.
It's cold in the winter period, they kids know the bus comes at 6.55, trust me they don't get there at 6.30 and wait. They get there at 6.53.

Eat breakfast in the AM, pretty simple.

So when they get a job they don't have to get up in the AM? I just don't see any rational argument here. If you start them later and are in a sports, their practice will run much later. So now its 7.30 and the kid is strolling in, dinner, shower, homework, GF, facebook etc. Kid is still not going to bed until late. Now kid is tiered and skips breakfast anyway and is cold waiting for the bus and union teacher got to sleep in.

There is only 24 hrs in the day, rearrange the schedule all you want but you can't create more time.

Bren:

How would starting later address the late night homework issue? There's just a shift to their time schedule--they don't actually get more time to do their homework. If they start later, they will finish later, go to bed even later, wake up later and still skip breakfast.

@Ben - here in Racine, elementary school kids start at staggered times, including at 7:30, while others don't start until almost nine and don't get home until almost 4. At the very least, couldn't we try it for a while, keeping the schools that already start early at their current time and moving one HS to later while switching a MS to a time in between?

@Cow - Sleep patterns can be a habit, but there are lots of studies out there that use the way adolescent brains develop to show how a later start time can really have a positive impact on the way teens learn and retain information.

I bet those teens are really screwed if they move away from their native time zone...

I'm wondering if it were those 'studies' were done in order to 'prove' a desired theory rather than objective and unbiased scientific research.

Many teens don't realize that they just need more sleep than they did before their hormones took control, and aren't disciplined enough to adjust their bodies to changes in their circadian rhythms.

@Cow - those stupid puberty hormones can do a number on sleep patterns, this is true, but what if those same hormones also really do affect the way kids learn and thus, starting at 8:30 as opposed to 7:30 is the answer? Since we're always so concerned with test scores, why not try it for a couple of years and see if it makes a difference - and then let's see how the later times also possibly affect attendance and attitudes (though I realize much of that would be anecdotal).

Maybe they should just follow the Mayo Clinic's recommendations for better teen sleep...

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/teens-health/CC00019/

Adjust the lighting. As bedtime approaches, dim the lights. Then turn off the lights during sleep. In the morning, expose your teen to bright light. These simple cues can help signal when it's time to sleep and when it's time to wake up.

Stick to a schedule. Tough as it may be, encourage your teen to go to bed and get up at the same time every day — even on weekends. Prioritize extracurricular activities and curb late-night social time as needed. ...limit working hours to no more than 16 to 20 hours a week.

Nix long naps. If your teen is drowsy during the day, a 30-minute nap after school might be refreshing. Be cautious, though. Too much daytime shut-eye might only make it harder to fall asleep at night.

Curb the caffeine. A jolt of caffeine might help your teen stay awake during class, but the effects are fleeting — and too much caffeine can interfere with a good night's sleep.

Keep it calm. Encourage your teen to wind down at night with a warm shower, a book or other relaxing activities. Discourage stimulating activities — including vigorous exercise, loud music, video games, television, computer use and text messaging — an hour or two before bedtime.

Know when to unplug. Take the TV out of your teen's room, or keep it off at night. The same goes for your teen's cellphone, computer and other electronic gadgets.

your name says it all...that aside, your comment that sleep patterns are purely the result of habit is ignorant and has no basis or support in that pesky lil' arena of SCIENCE. The vast majority of adults aren't at work by 7:20am yet we expect teens to be in class, alert, participating, taking tests, etc. If you asked the average parent to be at his or her desk at that hour while being lectured to and quizzed by bosses or management, there'd be workplace meltdowns by the millions! Start high school later. Doing so will decrease drop out rates and increase student performance and attitude. How many kids in this country are still milkin' the cows and feedin' the chickens before school? Few to nil? If those areas in which farming before dawn still exists want to keep school times early, go for it. The overwhelmingly vast majority of people who do not tend to the family farm prefer sleep, sanity, and scholastic success.

Generally speaking...as adults, they will have to be at work between 8:30 and 9:00am; as high schoolers, their "work day" begins between 6:50 and 7:25am. Their school day is out of sync with the rest of normal life, so getting out of school between 2 and 3pm does not make up for the fact that they are expected to be alert and perform while the rest of the world is, again generally speaking, just getting going or still slumbering. There is zero common sense in sending a kid, esp a teen on the hormonal roller coaster we all ride at that stage of development, to school as early as we do.

How long does it take for these kids to adjust to the time changes for daylight savings? If starting school an hour later will have such a huge effect on these kids, I can't imagine the turmoil brought upon them when they have to turn their clocks ahead and lose an hour of sleep...

You may be right to a degree, Steve, but what you fail to grasp is that sleep quality is not just about hours, it is also about time of day and how the time of day impacts hormone levels. For the typical teen, sleep in the early morning hours is more likely, restful, and restorative, than sleep later at night due to the interplay btwn hormones and time of day. That's why even when a teen dutifuly commits to lights out by 9 or 10pm or even later, they toss and turn, remaining wide awake, in spite of their best efforts.

It's not a myth to me, it's real life. Unless the parent 100% regulates the bed time, with zero distractions in the bedroom, nothing will change. There are even more distractions than when I went though this real life situation only 10 years ago.

Do we also ignore summer jobs that make you wake up early? Well I suppose so in this economy since there is less and less for a HS student.