Rarely do the worlds of medicine and education directly collide in the lives of students, but school start times are a notable exception. Despite compelling scientific evidence that starting school too early in the morning conflicts with the biological shift in teens’ sleep patterns, delaying school start times remains challenging for many districts.
Recognizing that early start times are a key, modifiable factor contributing to the public health epidemic of teen sleep deprivation, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine just joined the list of other major medical organizations, including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Centers for Disease Control, in recommending that secondary schools start no earlier than 8:30 a.m.
The first-ever National Conference on Adolescent Sleep, Health and School Start Times, co-sponsored by the RAND Corporation, Yale School of Medicine, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and Start School Later Inc., may help districts overcome some of the challenges to implementing evidence-based school hours by bringing together stakeholders from the health, education, legislative, and advocacy communities.
Teenagers today face a complex and ever-evolving society, and their ability to transition safely into adulthood depends, in large part, on how schools support their healthy brain, body, and socio-emotional development. A compelling body of research has shown that sleep plays a critical role in all of these areas. Even so, sleep deprivation among American adolescents is recognized among medical professionals as a public health epidemic.
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