Does School Start Too Early? In Ocean County, Some Say Yes

By MARC TORRENCE (Patch National Staff)
with additional reporting by Karen Wall

As the start of the new school year approaches, teenagers and parents already are dreading the thought of the alarm clock -- which most teens say goes off way too early.

Scientists at the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say they aren’t just being whiny kids; a new study shows there are detrimental effects on learning and health for teens who don’t get enough sleep.

Teenagers who don’t get enough sleep are more likely to use drugs and alcohol, be overweight and underperform academically, the CDC says. The center recommends at least 8.5 to 9.5 hours of sleep per night, and that schools should start at 8:30 a.m. at the earliest.

It echoes a study and recommendation last from the American Academy of Pediatrics, which urged schools to adopt start times of 8:30 a.m. at the earliest.

While critics often cite video games, social media and other factors for teenagers not getting to bed early enough, the scientists say a change in natural sleep patterns that occurs when children hit puberty is actually to blame.

“That delay on your internal clock is one of the earliest signs of puberty. It makes it really difficult for the teenager to fall asleep before 11 o’clock,” Anne Wheaton, author of the CDC study, told Patch. “If you try to go to bed by 11, and get the adequate amount of sleep, then you push school start times back until 8:30.”

But that’s not exactly happening across America or in much of New Jersey, including Brick Township and Ocean County.

Later start times are facing battles from school boards over logistical and financial issues. Fewer than one in five middle and high schools in the United States begin classes later than 8:30, according to a study released Thursday by the CDC.

“Clearly, the decisions are not made based on students’ health and safety and academics so much as things like bus schedules and other factors like that,” Wheaton said.

Homeroom in Brick Township’s two high schools starts at 7:10 a.m., with the middle schools’ day beginning at 7:45. Most of the district’s in Ocean County have similar start times. Only Central Regional in Bayville and Southern Regional in Stafford have changed their start times, both in response to the American Academy of Pediatrics recommendation. Now, high school homeroom begins at 7:45 at Southern and at 7:47 at Central. Central’s middle school starts at 8:30 a.m.

“We are starting the high school later...to help students get more sleep, which leads to increases in academics and safety,” Central Regional Superintendent Triantafillos Parlapanides told the Patch last year in announcing the change. “Students will no longer be at bus stops in the dark and will be more visible to drivers.“

In Toms River, parents have been lobbying the school board to make a change; the district has been discussing the idea but is waiting for direction from the state.

The Hamilton school district -- which is comparable in size to Toms River, with three high schools, three middle schools and 17 elementary schools -- starts its high schools at 7:50 a.m., with the middle schools beginning at 8:30 a.m.

And the New Jersey Legislature in June passed a bill directing the Department of Education to study the issues, benefits, and options for changing the start time for middle school and high school to a later time.

“Resetting the school day would not be easy or simple, but given what we now know about the effects of sleep deprivation on the adolescent brain, to not even consider it as a possibility does our students a disservice,” Assemblywoman Mila Jasey (D-Essex) told NJ.com.

State Education Commissioner David Hespe has previously said the state should take a leading role in examining school start times. However, a number of practical issues, including athletics, would need to be resolved for both families and districts, Hepse said.

Schools that pushed back start times have received complaints from parents, including that older children weren’t home to take care of younger siblings in the afternoon, according to the The New Jersey Association of School Administrators.

One of the most vocal opponents of later start times has been Ted Velkoff, member-at-large of the Fairfax County School District which, at more than 180,000 students, is the largest district in Virginia and the Baltimore-Washington metro area.

Velkoff wrote an op-ed in USA Today last year criticizing the academy’s policy recommendation.

“The problem is not really that kids need more sleep — because of course they do; adults need more sleep,” Velkoff told Patch on Friday. “The problem is trying to run a large organization that has many competing concerns.

“We at the school board have to factor in many more things than just the science of sleep.”

The biggest and seemingly most oft-cited factor? Buses.

A proposal in Fairfax County to push high school start times from 7:20 to 8 included an estimate that transportation costs would go up $7.5 million, as buses would be on the roads for more hours of the day.

Others argue, though, that the complexities of figuring out affordable transportation is worth the gain to student health.

“It’s worth it for adults to tackle a bus schedule,” Stacy Simera, outreach director at Start School Later, a nonprofit advocacy group, told Patch.

“The logistics may be daunting at first, but then you adopt it for the next 20 years. Child health should be worth adults’ temporary inconvenience.”

In a twist of irony, Velkoff ended up voting for a proposal to begin school later, but at 8, not 8:30 or 9 as other board members proposed. The 8 o’clock start passed.

Many districts are finding ways to make it work.

Chicago Public Schools decided recently to make a change. There, the elementary schools and high schools had been starting at the same time of morning. Rather than tinker with that schedule, many of the city’s high schools will soon start as late as 9 a.m, staggering bus schedules and routes. The move is expected to save the transportation system $13.5 million in its first year.

It’s not just schools that are taking notice of the latest research in sleep. The effects have reached even the biggest and baddest of America.

The U.S. Navy last April changed its shift-times on submarines from six hours to eight hours to allow for more sleep. The U.S. Army is advising its squad leaders that seven to eight hours of sleep per night “must become a daily priority for you and your soldiers.”

“If any entity could figure out a way to create a person that does not need sleep, you know the U.S. Armed Forces have tried for hundreds of years,” Simera said.

“When the Army says, ‘hey you need sleep,’ that means they’ve realized you can’t get by.”