Bzzz. Bzzz. Bzzz.
It’s an early weekday morning and all across Missouri, a similar scene is playing out: Alarm clocks are sounding before the sun rises, and more than 277,000 high schoolers are racing to get to school. They scarf down breakfast, shower, dress, drive to school, stop at lockers and are expected to be ready to learn by 7:50 a.m — or earlier.
Sound exhausting? Imagine how the students feel.
A from the Policy Research in Missouri Education (PRiME) Center at Saint University found that the average start time at Missouri high schools is 7:48 a.m. Not only is that earlier than high schools in 32 other states, but it also is earlier than all eight border states and the national average, according to data from the National Center for Education Statistics.
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Not only is the start time in Missouri earlier than the vast majority of states, it also is almost 45 minutes earlier than the doctor-recommended time. Experts from the American Academy of Pediatrics recommend that school starts at 8:30 a.m. or later during middle and high school to promote adequate sleep. Fewer than three percent of high schools in Missouri follow this advice.
It appears Missouri parents also feel school starts too early. In an August 2024 SLU/YouGov poll of 900 likely Missouri voters, more than 71% of respondents aged 18 to 44 supported pushing back high school start times until 8:30 a.m. or later.
If health experts and stakeholders agree, why is Missouri still sending high school students to school so early?
Parents wonder if everyone is struggling to pull their exhausted high schoolers out of bed each morning. The data says yes, but that a broken system of early starts is to blame.
Because of shifting circadian rhythms in adolescents, it is difficult for them to fall asleep much earlier than 11 p.m., according to Mayo Clinic sleep specialist Robin M. Lloyd, M.D. Adolescents need around 8.5 to 9.5 hours of sleep per night, meaning that with a current wake up call of, conservatively, 6 a.m., they would need to go to bed at 9 p.m. — a biologically difficult task.
Studies show that teenagers get an average of 7 hours per night. Many factors contribute to this chronic sleep deprivation: jam-packed activity schedules, social events, academic pressures such as homework and college preparation, and, of course, the early-morning wake up calls each school day.
Sleep deprivation has lasting impacts on physical health and safety, mental health and behavior, academics, and school performance. It can’t be “made up for” by getting extra weekend sleep.
There is precedent for the current trend in high school start times and many aspects of daily life have been built around it: childcare, sports schedules, and transportation systems.
To mitigate transportation challenges introduced by changing start times, school districts could attempt reversing the current standard of tiered start times by having elementary students start earliest, followed by middle and high schoolers — a shift that research published by the American Educational Research Association says doesn’t seem to impact elementary student performance and would allow busing costs and schedules to remain relatively consistent.
A uniform approach to school start times across schools, districts and the state would allow for more synchronized childcare and extracurricular scheduling, overcoming obstacles to earlier high school start times.
Despite the benefits of extra sleep for adolescents, there has been a shortage of legislative action in Missouri around the issue. California recently became the first state in the nation to require a high school start time of 8:30 a.m. or later, enacted in 2022.
So what to do? Change school start times for adolescents to 8:30 a.m. statewide. A one-time, modest shift would allow students the rest time they need, without starting unreasonably late. This shift is not to allow students to stay up later, but so they can better conform to their circadian rhythms, get adequate sleep, and be more well rested.
An 11 p.m. bedtime is more in line with adolescent circadian rhythms and still reasonable with the onslaught of after school activities. Pair that with an 8:30 a.m. start time, and Missouri would enable students to get 8.5 hours of sleep with a 7:30 a.m. wake up and still have an hour to get to school on time.
Maintaining precedent is costing our kids sleep. There is a misalignment between current Missouri high school start times and the prioritization of the rest time our students need.