Guilford Needs Action on Healthy School Start Times

I am a parent in Guilford. I am also the director of the Pediatric Sleep Program at Yale. In my clinic, I have seen first hand the effects of chronic sleep deprivation on children. I have been working with a group of concerned citizens to try to move our high school start time later. Recently, the Guilford School Board again decided to defer consideration of addressing the excessively early high school start time in our community.

Earlier this fall I attended a school board meeting to discuss implementing healthier school start times in our town. At one point, I said that the logistics of making a change were complicated. Dr. Freeman said that he agreed that the issues is complicated. However, I strongly disagree with this. Although implementation of a start time change is complex, both from a political and logistics standpoint, the issue is very simple. Guilford teenagers are like teenagers everyone in school districts with early start times. According to the Centers for Disease Control, 90% of teenagers are sleep deprived. Study after study has been published showing that the primary determinant of sleep duration for teenagers is the first bell time of the day. Here in Guilford, our start time is earlier than 90% of school districts in the United States. To pretend that there is not a problem here in our town is to stick your head in the sand.

Addressing health issues should not be a question of popularity or convenience, although these are the reasons cited by the Board of Education and Dr. Freeman. When I graduated from high school in 1991, we had a smoking section at our school. That seems crazy now, doesn’t it? This did not stop because smoking became unpopular. It stopped because the school system acknowledged the risk associated with smoking. (Later, this fact led to smoking becoming much less popular). Both Dr. Freeman and the Board have paid lip service to the importance of the health of teens in the district, but the only meaningful way to demonstrate concerns for our students is to act.

At this point, I wonder what it will take for action by the Board. Worsening test scores? Research has shown that the primary risk of sleep deprivation in affluent communities such as ours is more related to student health. A car accident? We know that early school start times are associated with a higher risk of accidents in communities with sleep deprived teenaged driver. Suicide? We know that sleep deprivation is associated with worsening depression, mood, increased drug use, and suicidality in teens. How about rising rates of obesity and hypertension in our student body? Chronic sleep deprivation sets our students up for health issues later in life. Many object (as in other communities) about the effects on sports. However, the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference, which oversees all high school sports in the state, acknowledges that “research shows that switching to later school start times does create a more optimal learning environment and improves student achievement for high school athletes” and that “interscholastic athletic activities can continue to be offered, with appropriate accommodations, within any reasonable school day structure.” (See page 221 in the referenced document).

I would like to be clear that later school start times does not let teenagers off the hook. They need to be responsible for good sleep hygiene practices such as removing electronics from their room prior to bedtime and avoiding excessive napping after school. However, most teenagers have a natural sleep period from midnight to 9 AM. Even if they do everything right, they will still be sleep deprived.

Recently, the Greenwich, Connecticut school board voted to move start times later. It was a long and hard fought battle. Here in Guilford, tiny steps (such as cluster stops) have been taken towards making our busing more efficient. More action is needed to bring the town of Guilford in line with the American Academy of Pediatrics recommendation that no schools should be started before 8:30 AM. I would like to see the Board work towards advancing a concrete plan to address this issue in the 2017-2018 school year.

If this issue is of concern to you, I have created a web page with more information on the topic. Please also like our Facebook page if you would like to help us advocate for the health of children in our community.