Should Naugatuck Schools Change their Start Times?

A topic that has been in discussion for a very long time is whether or not the schools should start later. It was just an idea until recently. There is now a committee researching the benefits of moving the time an hour back and is going to be voted on by the Naugatuck Board of Education. There are many beneficial factors to support this change. However, there are also many negative impacts students will see along with this change.
The plan is to push the start times back by an hour so the high school and the middle school will both start at 8:30 am and the intermediate school will start at 8:00 am. The elementary students will not have their times changed, they will continue to go in at 9:00 am. This may seem like a desirable change for those who are not fond of getting up early in the morning. However, moving the start time back an hour also pushes the end time back an hour. Therefore, the middle and high schools will not be getting out until 3:00 pm. This may not seem very late, but one needs to take in consideration many students are involved with clubs, sports, and can get hours of homework each night.
If schools ends later so do all of the activities that students participate in. Most sport teams at the high school will depart for a game or meet right after the school day ends. If the school time was to be pushed back an hour, these athletes would not be able to get ready for their games. Many of the schools in our district were unwilling to change their schedules for us when this committee first started looking into the possibilities. However, even if the schools were willing to, there would still be complications such as the students getting home extremely late. This leaves a minimum amount of time for other activities such as homework or family time.
Going against a teen’s natural sleep pattern is not the only reason why students cannot get enough sleep. A study done by Stanford University explains that technology including cell phones, video games, and television may be causing a problem for teens getting a full 8 hours of sleep. According to Stanford University, 72 percent of teens bring cell phones to bed with them while they are trying to fall asleep. This causes a problem because the light from a cell phone, television, laptop, etc. sends a message to the brain through the retina that it is not yet night time therefore causing the brain to think it is not tired.
Many are asking if changing the time schools are starting is truly necessary to get kids a full night of sleep. The National Sleep Foundation published a list of possible solutions that would also help a teen fall asleep earlier. Some of these solutions include: not taking too long of a nap during the day, avoiding coffee, tea or caffeine close to bedtime, establishing a sleep schedule to follow, and to steer clear of electronics. These solutions seem much easier and attainable to everybody than moving a whole school schedule.
The vote for this change is not going to be in effect for the 2017-2018 school year as planned due to there not being enough time to fully discuss the impacts this will have on the schedule and the budget.