SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the http://i.imgur.com/z4z67Ur.gif dept.
Opinion | Let Teenagers Sleep In
Three out of every four students in grades 9 to 12 fail to sleep the minimum of eight hours that the American Academy of Sleep Medicine recommends for their age group. And sleep deprivation is unremittingly bad news. Anyone who talks about sleep as if it's some kind of inconvenience and getting less of it is a virtue should be challenged. These people are dangerous.
At its most basic, insufficient sleep results in reduced attention and impaired memory, hindering student progress and lowering grades. More alarmingly, sleep deprivation is likely to lead to mood and emotional problems, increasing the risk of mental illness. Chronic sleep deprivation is also a major risk factor for obesity, Type 2 diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease and cancer. As if this weren't enough, it also makes falling asleep at the wheel much more likely.
In 2014, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended that middle and high schools start no earlier than 8:30 a.m., a policy now backed by the American Medical Association, the C.D.C. and many other health organizations.
[...] Whenever schools have managed the transition to a later start time, students get more sleep, attendance goes up, grades improve and there is a significant reduction in car accidents. The RAND Corporation estimated that opening school doors after 8:30 a.m. would contribute at least $83 billion to the national economy within a decade through improved educational outcomes and reduced car crash rates. The Brookings Institution calculates that later school start times would lead to an average increase in lifetime earnings of $17,500.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 25 2018, @11:35AM
Always hated to get up early for the bus to school, one year it came at 6:15am, ugh. Finally in senior year high school, I had a little motorcycle and drove my self to school. That year I also connected with a group of older guys who were racing cars and I volunteered to help them nearly every evening. Arranged my classes so that the first one was at 10am and had my parents write a permanent "late" note. I was a good kid, always made it in for that first class.
All the school really cared about was that I was there before 11(?), which was enough of the day that my attendance qualified for state aid (to school district) for the day. That worked very well, I got to know the staff in the attendance office instead of the sleepy teacher & kids in my assigned morning homeroom.