**The column below represents the personal views of the student journalist.
*Yawn* waking up at latest 6:30 a.m., leaving myself just 30 minutes to get ready, get ready, and let my car warm up. Still with that 30 minutes I am left rushing to get to school on time. I leave by 7:00am everyday because of my long drive. If I were to leave even 5 minutes later the traffic piles on far too much for me to arrive on time. Having been late and missing so many days of school, I’m on the verge of big trouble, causing me to speed and skip breakfast.
Once I arrive at school, at about 7:30, I try my hardest to stay awake, but as soon as I finish my first period classes homework, finite math, I drift off, waiting for the next class; where I am left to do nothing again. In my second period Economics, which feels like common sense, I find myself slumping in my seat. With each class napping, getting ahead in other classes, or playing on my phone. By 4th period U.S. history my teacher tells us we’re ahead and to use this as work time. I again fall asleep, being ahead I don’t see the point, there doesn’t seem to be anything meaningful to do.
In previous school years or just in the beginning of the school year I often would have teachers wake me up to ask why I wasn’t doing anything, only to answer that all of my work was done, missing nothing, and I had nothing to study; eventually this would lead to my teachers leaving me be. I mope around the building, going to each class, having the dreadful feeling of wasting my time. The school days are just too long for what is actually done in class.
A survey done by Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital Somerset, shows the effects of early class times and student sleep deprivation, “at least once a week, more than one-quarter (28 percent) of high school students fall asleep in school, 22 percent fall asleep doing homework, and 14 percent arrive late or miss school because they oversleep.”
Similarly, a study published in the journal AERA open found that on class level versus full day absences it was proven that more absences were accounted for on part day absences versus a full day. Jing Liu, a co-author of the research report and a PhD candidate at Stanford’s Graduate School of Education explained.
“If we consider absence at a class level instead of a daily level, 52 percent of all absences from classes are on part days rather than full days,” said Liu.
If you were to delve deeper on these research studies you would find that their final conclusion was that later start times would improve teen absences. With this conclusion in multiple studies; “Thus, delaying high school start times is a promising policy intervention that not only improves adolescents’ sleep, health, and behavior (Minges and Redeker, 2016) but can also strengthen their educational performance.”
While early start times are part of the problem, the length of the school day itself also contributes to student exhaustion and disengagement, particularly with seniors, but for many students, it is a huge problem. The longevity of school has students taking multiple filler classes, with multiple classes not being available until senior year, creating students who have way more credits than needed for graduation. The Prowler Quince Orchard High School’s student newspaper wrote something similar on this topic.
“Because most seniors have almost all of their necessary credits already completed, many students may feel as if electives and “class-fillers” aren’t necessary,” a section of The Prowlers newspaper stated.
In Education Week retired teacher Linda Weide shared her perspective; comparing the United States education system to other countries, coming to the conclusion that filler in public schools should be cut back.
“Cutting back on all the filler in public schools—which would require a lot more planning and thoughtfulness than changing the starting time—would probably have a more profound effect on sleep, stress, and student well-being than the superficial time change,” Weide said.
Critics might argue that shortening the school day would create new problems. Parents could lose what feels like “free daycare,” students may end up with heavier homework loads, and faster pacing may increase stress.
However at the high school age students are more mature and able to care and watch over themselves, although some parents may not like that, but many highschoolers ages 14 and up often already do take care of themselves. As for the extra work outside of class, as a student myself I would prefer to have a little more work outside of school than to be stuck in school for more time than needed, furthermore a trade off of more free time for a little schoolwork outside of school time I feel outweighs the homework time, still allowing for more free time than you normally would have.
An example of how the shortened days could be executed and when it is proven to work is two hour delays. In a two hour delay students start school later which will allow them to get more sleep as well as a shortened class schedule. In personal experience I have noticed students being more awake and aware as well as more focused and academic ready. In a high school newspaper Lions’ Digest English teacher Kara Frantz expressed her opinion.
“I think in a way I would say [that two-hour delays are] helpful just because I find that my students are more engaged and I hold their attention easier,” said Frantz.
In two hour delays compared to a normal day it is clear to see that students are more present mentally because not only is the delay allowing for more sleep and time for students to eat breakfast, I know for me I only eat breakfast if I am late or there is a delay, but also with the shorter time in class the attention of students is held longer.
Recent studies show that students’ attention span is way less than the current class time, according to WDBJ7 News, a Virginia news outlet.
“Recent studies show the average attention span of a student is 10-15 minutes with levels dropping after 10 to 30 minutes of a lecture. Even more alarming, high school students are off-task 17% of the time during lectures.”
This information on student attention span greatly explains why students are more involved during two hour delays and why it would be a good daily structure. As for students who take AP or other high-achieving and difficult classes, with how NAHS classes are structured, allowing for two periods to be allotted to these classes would work and eliminate the difficulty in teaching these advanced classes.
With your most required classes, from any state, math, english, history and we will add one elective class as well, that is only four classes allowing for three of those to be AP or choice of another class being AP. Furthermore if we eliminated WINN or as others call it FLEX period that would allow for more space for AP classes.
Although restructuring the school day would require careful planning and coordination between school boards and government officials, the potential benefits outweigh the challenges. Later start times and shorter, more focused class schedules could improve student sleep, engagement, and overall well-being. If schools truly prioritize student success, then rethinking how we us the time during the day is not just worth considering; but necessary.