Your Name
Street Address
City, State/Zip
Phone, fax, and/or email
Today’s date
Addressee
Street Address
City, State/Zip
Dear Superintendent Last Name and Members of the School Board,
On behalf of my children who are students in this district, and in support of the wellbeing of all students, I write now to urge the adoption of healthy start times at Middle
and/or High School. These two well-established facts serve as the bases for my request:
(i) overwhelming evidence supports the conclusion that later starting students
outperform their earlier starting peers academically; and, (ii) safeguarding the welfare
and potential of adolescent students requires a delay in morning classes until 8:30 a.m.,
or later.
As to the first point, economists have recently established a causal relationship between
later start times and improved academic performance among adolescent students.
Notably, however, even before economists weighed in, Kyla Wahlstrom, Director of the
Center for Applied Research and Educational Improvement (CAREI), reported that in
schools which have delayed start times, the academic trend following the change goes
exclusively towards higher grades. “[T]rend lines show grades rise when schools open
later. We never see trend lines suggesting grades go down.” (Lamberg, High Schools
Find Later Start Time Helps Students’ Health and Performance (2009) 301 J. Am. Medical
Assn. 21, p. 2200.)
Bearing in mind that biological adolescence lasts until around 19.5 years for women and
20.9 years for men (Roenneberg, Kuehnle, Pramstaller, Ricken, Havel, Guth, & Merrow,
A marker for the end of adolescence (2004) 14 Current Biology 24, pp. 38–39; Kruszelnicki,
Teenage Sleep (May 3, 2007) ABC Science), University of California and United States Air
Force Academy economists studied course results from 2004 to 2008 for 6,165 first
semester Air Force Academy cadets, controlling for potentially confounding factors -grading structure, class selection and teachers -- for example, to determine the “causal
effect” of school scheduling upon adolescent academic achievement. (Carrell,
Maghakian, & West, A’s from Zzzz’s? The Causal Effect of School Start Time on the Academic
Performance of Adolescents (Aug. 2011) 3 Am. Economic J.: Economic Policy 3, pp. 62-81.)
Air Force Academy students have no choice over their course schedules and, during the
years studied, were assigned start times ranging from 7:00 a.m. to 8:50 a.m. Unlike most
high schools, all first-year students take the same classes and the same standardized
course exams, providing a consistent objective outcome measure.
“We find that when a student is randomly assigned to a first period
course starting prior to 8 a.m., they perform significantly worse in all their
courses taken on that day compared to students who are not assigned to a
first period course. Importantly, we find that this negative effect
diminishes the later the school day begins. [¶] Our findings have important
implications for education policy; administrators aiming to improve
student achievement should consider the potential benefits of delaying
school start time. A later start time of 50 minutes in our sample has the
equivalent benefit as raising teacher quality by roughly one standard
deviation. Hence, later start times may be a cost-effective way to improve
student outcomes for adolescents.” (Id., pp. 63, 80, italics added.)
“Despite our use of university-level data, we believe our findings are
applicable to the high school student population more generally because
we consider only freshmen students in their first semester at USAFA. Like
high school seniors, first semester college freshman are still adolescents
and have the same biological sleep patterns and preferences as those in
their earlier teens. However, we recognize that USAFA students are not
the average teen; they were high-achievers in high school and chose to
attend military service academy. Although we do not know for certain if
school start times affect high-achievers or military-types differently than
teenagers in the general population, we have no reason to believe that the
students in our sample would be more adversely affected by early start
times. Because the students in our study self-selected into a regimented
lifestyle, if anything, we believe our estimates may be a lower-bound of
the effect for the average adolescent.” (Id., p. 63, italics in original.)
The economists found that a 50 minute delay in the first class increased grades by 0.15
standard deviations. (Id., pp. 62-81; see, Jacob & Rockoff, Organizing Schools to Improve
Student Achievement: Start Times, Grade Configurations, and Teacher Assignments (Sept.
2011) Hamilton Project, Brookings Inst., p. 8) Writing for the Brookings Institute,
economists from Columbia University and the University of Michigan agree the Air
Force Academy study may have “broader implications. [¶] College freshmen are just
slightly older than high school students and share many of the biological characteristics
associated with their sleep cycles. While Air Force cadets are clearly a special group, we
cannot think of a good rationale why such high-achieving and highly disciplined young
men and women would be more adversely affected by early start times than are typical
teenagers.” (Jacob & Rockoff, Organizing Schools to Improve Student Achievement: Start
Times, Grade Configurations, and Teacher Assignments, supra, Hamilton Project, Brookings
Inst., p. 8.)
In a study published this year, Finley Edwards, visiting Professor of Economics at
Colby College, compiled test data covering a 7-year period for middle school students
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in Wake County, North Carolina, now the 16th largest school district in the country.
Edwards‘ study analyzes data for students beginning classes according to their bus
scheduling; i.e., Tier I classes (7:30-7:45), and Tier II classes (8:00-8:45). (Tier III classes
(9:15 a.m.) are reserved for elementary school students.) Edwards examined
standardized test data from the 14 middle schools changing start times by 30 minutes or
more during the study period (2000-2006), and compared test scores for respective
grade levels. Edwards also examined individual achievement before and after the
change. (Edwards, Early to Rise? The Effect of Daily Start Times on Academic Performance
(Dec. 2012) 31 Economics of Education Rev. 6, pp. 970-983.)
The data showed that starting school one hour later (i.e., at 8:30 a.m.) lead to average
gains of 1.5 to 3 percentile points in standardized math test scores (0.06 to 0.09 standard
deviations) and standardized reading test scores (0.03 to 0.10 standard deviations). With
most middle schools beginning at 8:15 a.m., the gains in Edwards‘ data derive largely
from the changes from 7:30 a.m. to 8:15 a.m. Disadvantaged students benefited the
most, with effects roughly twice as large as advantaged students. In addition, the
benefits of later start times increased as the children progressed through adolescence.
(Ibid.) Moreover, tests administered to high school sophomores showed “[t]he benefits
of a later start time in middle school appear to persist through at least the 10th grade.”
(Edwards, Do Schools Begin Too Early? (Summer 2012) 12 Education Next 3.) By contrast,
“the negative impact of early start times persists over time.” (Edwards, Early to Rise?
The Effect of Daily Start Times on Academic Performance, supra, 31 Economics of Education
Rev. 6, p. 981.)
Edwards also found later start times associated with decreased absences, less time spent
watching television and a greater amount of time spent on homework, indicating that
these factors may help explain why later starting students have higher test scores.
(Edwards, Early to Rise? The Effect of Daily Start Times on Academic Performance, supra, 31
Economics of Education Rev. 6, p. 971.) Edwards concludes that “an increase in start
times by 1 h would lead to a 3 percentile point gain in both math and reading test scores
for the average student.” (Id., p. 982.) Auburn University Professor of Psychology
Joseph Buckhalt cites Edwards‘ study as “direct evidence” of the “measurable
significant effect” of later start times on adolescent academic achievement. (Buckhalt,
Can Later Start Times Affect School Achievement? (Sept. 30, 2012) Psychology Today.)
Relying upon the foregoing studies, the biological evidence, a recent study by Cortes, et
al., and data reflecting the prevalence of sleep deprivation among adolescents attending
early starting schools, Brookings Institute economists “conservatively” estimate that
shifting middle and high school start times “from roughly 8 a.m. to 9 a.m.[,]” will
increase academic achievement by 0.175 standard deviations on average, with effects
for disadvantaged students roughly twice as large as advantaged students, at little or no
cost to schools; i.e., a 9 to 1 benefits to costs ratio when utilizing single-tier busing, the
most expensive transportation method available. (Jacob & Rockoff, Organizing Schools to
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Improve Student Achievement: Start Times, Grade Configurations, and Teacher Assignments,
supra, Ham`ilton Project, Brookings Inst., pp. 5-11, 21, n. 7 [distinguishing study by
Hinrichs (here)].) “This impact is equivalent to an additional two months of schooling.”
(Policy Brief, Organizing Schools to Improve Student Achievement: Start Times, Grade
Configurations, and Teacher Assignments (Aug. 2011) Brookings Inst., Hamilton Project, p.
4.) “When translated into earnings, the average student who starts school later would
make about $17,500 more over the course of her life.” (Ibid.; Jacob & Rockoff, Organizing
Schools to Improve Student Achievement: Start Times, Grade Configurations, and Teacher
Assignments, supra, Hamilton Project, Brookings Inst., pp. 6, 10 [accord].)
By contrast:
“Early school start times reduce performance among disadvantaged
students by an amount equivalent to having a highly ineffective teacher.
[¶] The earliest school start times are associated with annual reductions in
student performance of roughly 0.1 standard deviations for
disadvantaged students, equivalent to replacing an average teacher with a
teacher at the sixteenth percentile in terms of effectiveness.” (Jacob &
Rockoff, Organizing Schools to Improve Student Achievement: Start Times,
Grade Configurations, and Teacher Assignments, supra, Hamilton Project,
Brookings Inst., pp. 5, 7.)
Considering the second point, student welfare and potential, joining her Harvard
colleagues in endorsing later start times (e.g., here, here, here, here, here, pp. 382-383),
Professor of Sleep Medicine Susan Redline advises that 7:30 a.m. and 8 a.m. classes
begin too early for adolescent students to obtain sufficient sleep and serve to interrupt
REM sleep. (Powell, Bleary America needs some shut-eye: Forum points to schools, hospitals,
factories as ripe for sleep reform (Mar. 8, 2012) Harvard Science.) “Because of a multitude
of intrinsic and environmental factors, adolescents are particularly vulnerable to
disturbed sleep, and are one of the most sleep deprived age groups in the country.”
(Lund, Reider, Whiting, & Prichard, Sleep Patterns and Predictors of Disturbed Sleep in a
Large Population of College Students (Feb. 2010) 46 J. Adolescent Health 2, p. 124.) “Sleep
deprivation among adolescents appears to be, in some respects, the norm rather than
the exception in contemporary society.” (Roberts, Roberts, & Duong, Sleepless in
adolescence: Prospective data on sleep deprivation, health and functioning (2009) 32 J.
Adolescence, p. 1055.) “A loss of one hour of sleep is equivalent to [the loss of] two
years of cognitive maturation and development.” (Bronson, Snooze or Lose (Oct. 7, 2007)
N.Y. Magazine., web p. 2.)
CDC scientists report, “Delaying school start times is a demonstrated strategy to
promote sufficient sleep among adolescents.” (Eaton, McKnight-Eily, Lowry, Croft,
Presley-Cantrell, & Perry, Prevalence of Insufficient, Borderline, and Optimal Hours of Sleep
Among High School Students – United States, 2007 (2010) 46 J. Adolescent Health, p. 401.)
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Citing the “deleterious impact of school times on our teenagers,” Janet Croft, Ph.D., a
senior epidemiologist at the CDC, advises, “It can change lives to change school start
times.” (Park, Falling Asleep in Class? Blame Biology (Dec. 15, 2008) CNN.) Adolescents
require 9 or more hours of sleep per night (O’Malley & O’Malley, School Start Time and
Its Impact on Learning and Behavior, publish. in, Sleep and Psychiatric Disorders in
Children and Adolescents (Ivanenko edit., Informa Healthcare 2008) pp. 79-80), but
their “rather fixed” sleep pattern is biologically delayed, running from about 11 p.m. to
8 a.m. (Later Start Times for High School Students (2002) Univ. Minn.) Professor emeritus
of Sociology at Stanford University, Sanford Dornbusch, admonishes, “Adults, unaware
of the sleep needs of adolescents, require them to start school earlier in the day than is
required of younger children.” (Dornbusch, Sleep and Adolescence: A Social
Psychologist’s Perspective, publish. in, Adolescent Sleep Patterns, Biological, Social, and
Psychological Influences (Carskadon, edit., Cambridge Univ. Press 2002) p. 3.)
Mary Carskadon, Ph.D., Professor of Psychiatry & Human Behavior at Brown
University School of Medicine, and Director of Chronobiology and Sleep Research at
Bradley Hospital observed recently:
“School administrators would serve students and teachers better by
moving the opening bell later. The weight of the evidence from decades of
studies suggests that creating conditions to encourage student sleep
would improve the students’ mood, energy, alertness, and academic
performance. [¶] Schools are not solely responsible for the perfect storm of
teen sleep, but they can make a huge difference by moving to a later start
time. The result would be happier, healthier, more attentive, and better
performing students in high school.” (Carskadon, For better student health,
start school later (Sept. 5, 2012) Brown Univ., italics added; see also,
Backgrounder: Later School Start Times (2011) Nat. Sleep Foundation.)
Among adolescents, “daily feelings of anxiety, depression, and fatigue are the most
consistent psychological outcomes of obtaining less sleep at night.” (Fuligini &
Hardway, Daily Variation in Adolescents’ Sleep, Activities, and Psychological Well-Being
(2005) 16 J. Research on Adolescence 3, p. 371.) Adequate sleep is necessary for young
people to regulate their emotions. (Dahl, The Consequences of Insufficient Sleep for
Adolescents: Links Between Sleep and Emotional Regulation (Jan. 1999) 80 Phi Delta Kappan
5, pp. 354-359; see also, Sleep Experts Concerned About St. Paul Start Time Change (Jun. 3,
2011) CBS.) In 2009, following a change in start time from 8 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. at St.
George’s School, Dr. Judith Owens found the number of students reporting symptoms
of depression declined (Owens, Belon, & Moss, Impact of Delaying School Start Time on
Adolescent Sleep, Mood, and Behavior (Jul. 2010) 164 Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent
Med. 7, p. 613), confirming outcomes from the Minnesota longitudinal studies (high
school start times delayed from 7:20 a.m. to 8:30 a.m., Edina, from 7:15 a.m. to 8:40 a.m.,
Minneapolis). (Wahlstrom, Changing Times: Findings From the First Longitudinal Study of
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Later High School Start Times (Dec. 2002) 86 Nat. Assn. Secondary School Principals Bull.
633, pp. 3, 13.) Given the relationship between depression and suicidal ideation in
adolescents, Dr. Owens reported the finding was “particularly noteworthy.” (Owens,
Belon, & Moss, Impact of Delaying School Start Time on Adolescent Sleep, Mood, and
Behavior, supra, 164 Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Med. 7, p. 613.)
Serious consideration of suicide is among the many health-risk behaviors associated
with restricted school night sleep in a 2011 CDC study. (McKnight-Eily, Eaton, Lowry,
Croft, Presley-Cantrell, & Perry, Relationships between hours of sleep and health-risk
behaviors in US adolescent students (Aug. 5, 2011) Preventive Medicine, pp. 1-3; see also,
O’Brien & Mindell, Sleep and Risk-Taking Behavior in Adolescents (2005) 3 Behavioral Sleep
Med. 3, pp. 113-133; Pasch, Laska, Lytle, & Moe, Adolescent Sleep, Risk Behaviors, and
Depressive Symptoms: Are They Linked? (Mar. 2010) 34 Am. J. Health Behavior 2, pp. 237248.) Lead author of the CDC study, Lela McKnight–Eily, Ph.D., commented, “Many
adolescents are not getting the recommended hours of sleep they need on school nights.
Insufficient sleep is associated with participation in a number of health–risk behaviors
including substance use, physical fighting, and serious consideration of suicide attempt.
Public health intervention is greatly needed, and the consideration of delayed school
start times may hold promise as one effective step in a comprehensive approach to
address this problem.” (Insufficient sleep among high school students associated with a
variety of health-risk behaviors (Sept. 26, 2011) CDC Online Newsroom; see also,
Clinkinbeard, Simi, Evans, & Anderson, Sleep and Delinquency: Does the Amount of Sleep
Matter? (Jul. 2011) J. Youth & Adolescence, pp. 1-3 [associating diminished sleep with
increased likelihood of juvenile criminal conduct].)
A study published in April 2011 associates early start times in Virginia Beach (7:25 a.m.,
except one school at 7:20 a.m.) with 41% higher crash rates among teen drivers than in
adjacent Chesapeake where classes started at 8:40 a.m. or 8:45 a.m. (Vorona, Szklo-Coxe,
Wu, Dubik, Zhao, & Ware, Dissimilar Teen Crash Rates in Two Neighboring Southeastern
Virginia Cities with Different High School Start Times (Apr. 2011) 7 J. Clinical Sleep Med. 2,
pp. 145-151.) Lead researcher Robert Vorona, M.D., Associate Professor of Internal
Medicine at Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, Virginia, directed his remarks
to school scheduling. “We believe that high schools should take a close look at having
later start times to align with circadian rhythms in teens and to allow for longer sleep
times. Too many teens in this country obtain insufficient sleep. A burgeoning literature
suggests that this may lead to problematic consequences including mood disorders,
academic difficulties and behavioral issues.” (Teen Automobile Crash Rates are Higher
When School Starts Earlier (May 12, 2010) Am. Academy Sleep Med.)
In reviewing a 2008 Kentucky start time/crash rate study reaching a similar outcome
(Danner & Phillips, Adolescent Sleep, School Start Times, and Teen Motor Vehicle Crashes
(Dec. 2008) 4 J. Clinical Sleep Med. 6, pp. 533–535), John Cline, Assistant Clinical
Professor of Psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine, concluded, “Given the danger
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posed to young people from car accidents this is a strong reason in itself to change
school start times.” (Cline, Do Later School Start Times Really Help High School Students?
(Feb. 27, 2011) Psychology Today.) Recognizing that sleep is “essential for basic
survival, occurring in every species of living creature that has ever been studied[]”
(Dahl, The Consequences of Insufficient Sleep for Adolescents: Links Between Sleep and
Emotional Regulation, supra, 80 Phi Delta Kappan 5, p. 355), later start time advocate
Mandi Mader, M.S.W., L.C.S.W., puts the problem in perspective. ”Sleep deprivation,
with such health consequences as depression, suicide, car crashes, and increased risk of
other injuries, should be treated like hunger [deprivation]. We don’t expect children to
learn without food and we shouldn’t expect them to learn without sleep.” (EOA Staff,
Advocates Join Forces To Push For Common Sense School Start Times (Nov. 23, 2012) Eye On
Annapolis.)
Please follow the evidence when determining the time of day school should begin.
Yours truly,
Your Name/Title/Affiliation
(Consider citing the reader to some or all Start Time Recommendations, etc.
(html, docx, or pdf), perhaps in lieu of the foregoing letter.)
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