Will more Z's lead to more A's? Will more Z's lead to more A's? (October 26, 2005)

New movement contends later start times at school benefit student health and learning

by Alexandria Rocha

Daniela Governatori, 16, drinks coffee every morning. The Palo Alto High School junior needs the caffeine to wake up -- and she's not alone.

"If it's not coffee, it's Red Bull or Rock Star," she said, referring to her classmates' dependency on energy drinks. "I put the snooze on like five times and my mom still has to come in and wake me up. I'm so slow in the morning."

Daniela and her friend Louisa Zuo, also 16 and a Paly junior, are poster pupils for a local campaign to push back high schools' start times based on scientific research that teenagers naturally stay up and wake up later than younger adolescents and adults. Louisa typically finishes her homework after midnight and wakes up at 4:30 a.m. twice a week for swim practice. Both girls say they constantly feel sleep deprived.

Palo Alto mom Melinda McGee's grassroots campaign called "8:45 Everyday" coincides with a larger, national debate pitting research against traditional school schedules, which have long accommodated after-school sports and activities.

Experts on sleep -- including Dr. William Dement, head of Stanford University's Sleep Clinic and Research Center -- say sleep deprivation is a huge problem among today's youth and assert that early school start times are not helping matters. A recent poll by the National Sleep Foundation revealed that 60 percent of children 18 years old and under said they were tired during an average day, while 15 percent said they fell asleep at school during the year.

It's "wrap a 50-pound weight around my back and that's how I'll go throughout the day," Dement said.

Here's the equation raising the red flag: Teenagers' biological clock tells them to hit the pillow oftentimes later then 11 p.m. and they need about nine to nine-and-a-half hours of sleep a night. Since most high schools, including the two here, start earlier than 8 a.m. on most days, experts say teens are ripped of the sleep they need to function at their highest level. The local statistics support the concerns: More than half of 1,450 Paly students surveyed on various topics in April said they only get between six to eight hours of sleep a night.

"When everyone understands that a consistently later school start time is in the best interest of our teenagers' health, well-being, safety, and learning, then the school and sports schedules will change. The science supports this change," said McGee, whose son is a student at Paly.

Alexei Koseff, 15, a Paly sophomore, said he has trouble getting to school on time even with preparation and multiple alarm clocks.

"I tend to go to bed later, and it's always a rush out the door for me. Even if I tell myself I'm going to leave at a certain time, I have a hard time," he said. "I always say when I'm tired, I'll go to bed, but there is always so much to do."

Koseff is not alone. Louisa, who forgot her lunch and was a few minutes late to school Monday, said many of her classmates are tardy every day. Daniela added that it's a significant problem.

"Tardies are really bad. People would rather cut first period than get a tardy," she said.

The three students said as a whole, their generation is not getting enough sleep.

"There's always someone sleeping in class. I always hear people complaining about being tired," Louisa said.

They also support a later start time.

"Even 20 minutes, half an hour would be helpful. When you don't get enough sleep, it's 30 minutes every night and that adds up. By the end of the week, you're two and a half hours sleep deprived and that feels so horrible," Koseff said.

Many officials in Palo Alto who have researched the topic agree that later school start times could benefit teenagers in a variety of ways -- including the possibility of better grades and attendance records -- but they're also concerned about negative impacts on after-school sports and activities.

"I'm not disagreeing with any of the things they have found," said Paly Principal Scott Laurence. "For me it's a fairly daunting and complex study and if you're going to do it you need to do it right."

Currently, Gunn High School starts at 7:55 a.m. every day, while Paly has an alternative schedule. Classes start at 7:50 a.m. Monday, Tuesday and Friday; 8:15 a.m. Wednesdays; and 8:45 a.m. Thursdays. The late start on Thursdays was originally implemented to accommodate teacher meetings and was so popular among students it stuck around. Next semester, however, students will start at 7:50 a.m. on Thursdays again.

McGee, who heads the department of management science and engineering at Stanford University, has seen the sleep deprivation caused by an early start time firsthand. Her son was an early riser before entering adolescence.

"He was 'Mr. Pop Out Of Bed.' Then there was the big shift. He wants to stay up later, he's fully wide awake later, and then he started sleeping in. He'd get up with dark circles under his eyes," she said. "I started going on the Internet and saying this is crazy. We know what is best for our kids and yet we're not doing that."

Dement said adolescents tend to be "classic night owls." It's caused by a "biologically driven shift in the circadian cycle that gives teens a troublesome kick in alertness at about the same time the folks around them (younger and older) are getting sleepy and going to bed," according to his book co-authored by Christopher Vaughan, "The Promise of Sleep."

A separate study conducted by the University of Minnesota in 1997 found that students slept more and earned better grades in schools with start times later than 8:30 a.m.

However, the major drawback concerns after-school sports and activities. Laurence said most away football games start at 3:15 pm., which causes student athletes to miss their last class period of the day. If the day started later, it could mean that students in sports would risk missing the last two or three periods.

"We're up to 1,700 students here, and it has a potential impact in a lot of areas in a lot of ways that we don't know yet," he said.

For more information on the 8:45 Everyday campaign, e-mail McGee at everyday845@hotmail.com.

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