Posted on 05/18/2006 7:22:37 AM PDT by Stingray51
The movement to give groggy teens a bit more shut-eye by pushing back the school start time is gaining steam.
Fifty mothers gathered at a Central Middle School PTA meeting yesterday to hear how the Wilton League of Women Voters studied adolescent sleep patterns, concluded that the start of high school ought to be pushed back and then worked with the school system to change the start time from 7:15 a.m. to 8:20 a.m. without adding transportation costs to the district budget.
"New research is showing that (adolescents') hormones and circadian rhythms don't allow them to go to sleep until 11, and that's why they are not getting enough sleep," said Leslie Bhutani, Central Middle School's incoming PTA co-president.
"Our kids are just too sleepy to learn," said Donna Nickitas, president of the Greenwich League of Women Voters, which invited members of the Wilton league to brief Greenwich about the issue in December. Greenwich High School starts its day at 7:30 a.m. .....
She pointed to statistics showing that the highest rate of fall-asleep car crashes occur between the ages of 16 and 25, and most of these happen around 7 a.m., when sleepy teens are driving to school.
"We became convinced that the right thing to do for kids was to align their sleep so that they could go to sleep when they were sleepy and go to school when they were awake," she said. .....
"When I'm not sleeping through my first class, I'm watching other kids sleep," [9th student E. McNitt] said. "Sometimes, I finish homework a little after 11 p.m., but more often it's 12 a.m. or later. It's the same for most of my peers".....
(Excerpt) Read more at greenwichtime.com ...
My guess is that this movement is more about justifying and facilitating these parents' hands-off approach to child-rearing than anything based on real science.
They could go to bed earlier.
Problem solved.
You know, I STILL hate getting up early. But, life requires it. Boo hoo.
Go away, Sergeant, my circadian rhythms . . .
Every workday for the last 2 years I rose (usually a minute or two before my alarm) at 3:15AM to be in my office by 5:30. I get more done before the Marines get up, than most people do all day.
Don't cry to me about early rising....tell it to Ben Franklin.
Greenwich and Wilton. Why am I not shocked.
Where's my tiny violin?
It's hard to get in trouble when you're sound asleep.
Early to rise
and early to bed,
makes a man healthy,
but socialy dead
me too... i'm a night owl myself... but hey--you gotta do what you gotta do... as homeschoolers, we typically don't start "school" until 10:30-11ish... but we do chores before that...
I don't think that's too unreasonable. When I was in school the start time was 9am. I think a lot of schools began starting at earlier times to accommodate working parents with long commutes.
Our government is not interested in logic! You should know that.
My wife hates having to administer a Chemistry test first period (which starts at 7:20 in her school). Half the kids are still asleep.
Let the poor babies sleep until noon, that will get them ready for a lifetime of SSI payments. Then we can wail about jobs going off-shore.
and i get more done between the hours of 11:00 p.m.-2:00 a.m. i get up at about 8:30 a.m. i take about a 20 minute nap in the afternoon...
Yep. If they push back the start time, then the kids will just stay up even later instant messaging.
Bush's fault. I had to say it. :)
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