School starting at 7:23 is a daily occurrence  for the students of Big Spring High School, and the tradition of waking up at 6 in the morning is the average routine for all, with some even getting up at 5 in the morning just to go to school and follow their normal schedule, but are kids working too hard and getting too little of sleep in return? The big talk around schools is starting schools later in the day so kids can get more sleep before school and be ready to do work or even be able to stay up later at night to get work done or get that project last night that the class was assigned done, especially kids playing sports. It can be hard for them to balance school and sports at the same time.

Let’s look at it this way A young teenage boy is working on a project late at night and having trouble getting it done. He has to get it done before tomorrow, and when he finally gets the last sentence in,  he looks at the clock and it’s 11:45 at night.  He tries to go to sleep and try to catch up on some energy, but he wakes up the next morning, rolls over , and it’s 8:25. This is just one of many things that can happen with trying to run a tight schedule and running school so early in the morning for students.

Starting schools later could benefit not just the students of Big Spring, but all the other schools around helping kids and lowering stress and anxiety. This could boost the progress and grades of the students helping kids achieve more and giving kids an opening for wanting to do more school work or giving them more time to do more work. Sleep deprivation is a heavy health and safety concern that can be solved with this simple solution. Teenagers are going through a heavy growth point in their lives where they require this sleep, but not just for their school, but for their health, minds, and bodies to grow. According to sleepfoundation.org teens need about 8 to 10 hours of sleep each night to function the best. One study says only 15% reported sleeping 8 ½ hours on school nights. Many teenagers are suffering from treatable disorders such as narcolepsy, insomnia, restless leg syndrome or sleep apnea. Not just student’s mental health but their physical health can also be affected such as increase in acne and other skin problems, just to name a few.