Students complaining about school starting early has been going around for what feels like forever. What you hear from students is stuff like that “school should start an hour later because, scientifically, a human brain doesn’t fully wake up until about 8:00 AM.” Now, while the idea of starting school later sounds very nice, we would end school an hour later to make up for that extra hour. This sounds less pleasant, especially for students that are involved in after-school activities because they would be staying in school even later. I think that even if school starts later, after a while everyone will get used to it and the cycle will begin again. This is one of those problems that no matter what you do, no one will ever be happy because of how many people it will affect and how all those people are very different.

But is the problem the time school starts, or the time students wake up? Many students I know that don’t take the school bus and live close to the school or have a secured ride to school wake up 30-20 minutes before school starts. These same students are the ones that are missing their first period or are half asleep in class. I would know because I am one of those students. I don’t think the issue is what time classes start because when I have to go to the airport at 8 in the morning, I’m wide awake for hours before I’m even in the airport. Or when my family planned a road trip for early in the morning, I’m awake before school would even start. The problem could also be tied down to the fact that students get bored of going to school every day to go to the same classes every day, but that’s a dead end because a person can’t change your classes every day.

As much as I would love an extra hour of sleep before school, it wouldn’t solve any issue long-term. Even if it did end up solving a problem, I would not choose to get out of school at 3:30 PM, just to sleep an extra hour.