Warsaw School Board Hears Proposal To Change Start Times At High School, Middle Schools
Warsaw School Board Hears Proposal To Change Start Times At High School, Middle Schools
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David Slone-dslone@timesuniononline.com
Warsaw School Board Hears Proposal To Change Start Times At High School, Middle SchoolsDr. Caitlin Ryser wants the Warsaw School Board to consider changing the start times for the high school and middle schools, and she backed up her presentation Monday to the board with all the research she could find on the subject from A to Zzzz.
Ryser, an OBGYN physician who has practiced in the Warsaw community for the last 17 years, said she takes care of a large number of adolescent patients and was making the presentation as an advocate for them.
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends teenagers get 8.5 to 9.5 hours of sleep a night, while the National Sleep Foundation found that 87 percent of high school students get less than eight hours of sleep, she said. Forty percent of students get six or less hours of sleep a night. The AAP has identified early school start times as a crucial contributor to the epidemic of teen sleep deprivation.
“In fact, so much so that the American Academy of Pediatrics issued a policy statement in August 2014 recommending that all middle school and high schools start after 8:30 a.m.,” she said.
Why are teenagers different and why can’t they just fall asleep earlier? Ryser said there is over 20 years of research from neurobiologists that have found in puberty there is a temporary change: the secretion of melatonin – which tells people when it’s daytime and nighttime and when sleep is needed – is delayed. Teenagers don’t secrete melatonin until about 10:30 p.m.
“When teenagers say, ‘I’m not tired,’ they truly are not tired until approximately 11 p.m. They continue to secrete melatonin until 9 a.m.,” Ryser said. “So if you think about it, we’re asking these teenagers to wake up at 5, 6 o’clock to get ready for school, to cross the street, drive a car, go to first-period class at 7:30 and solve complex problems, all under the effects of a sedative.”
Healthy sleep for teenagers is from 11 p.m. to 8 a.m. or later, she pointed out.
There are two stages of sleep, the deep sleep and R.E.M. sleep, which is where people have more brain activity while they’re sleeping and takes place during the last third of sleep. She said it’s during R.E.M. where people regulate emotions such as aggression, depression and anxiety, so when a student goes to bed at about 11 p.m. and is pulled out of R.E.M. sleep night after night early the next morning, it affects the teens’ learning and emotions.
Ryser pointed out the Center for Disease Control (CDC) did a study in 2017 and surveyed high school students nationwide. Of those, 30 percent are overweight or obese; 20 percent are current, regular marijuana users; 30 percent are alcohol users on a regular basis; 16 percent have rode with a drunk driver; 13 percent use electronic vapors on a regular basis; 14 percent use narcotics without a prescription; 17 percent have seriously considered suicide; and 7 percent have attempted suicide. Sleep deprivation is a contributor to those issues.
To put that in perspective, she said the CDC states that the chance of our children dying by a school shooter is less than 1 percent, though she emphasized she wasn’t trying to minimize school shootings.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has found that 90,000 traffic accidents and 20 percent of fatal car crashes are due to drowsy driving, although that figure may be underreported. Young drivers account for 27 percent of those accidents, and car accidents are the leading cause of death for teenagers in the U.S.
“They found that when someone sleeps less than six hours, their level of impairment while driving is comparable to being legally intoxicated,” she said. So if 40 percent of teenagers are getting less than six hours of sleep, she said those 40 percent of students are driving at a level of being legally intoxicated every day, endangering themselves, their passengers and others.
She said a in couple of other school districts in the country later school starting times had positive effects on students, including a decrease in car accidents.
She said there are positive effects on mental health when students get more sleep, and studies show more sleep is more effective than FDA-approved drugs on mental illnesses. Over 60 studies have shown a correlation between chronic insufficient sleep and suicide. Suicide is the second leading cause of death in teenagers. “And teenagers are 41 percent less likely to commit suicide if they’ve slept eight hours a night” and no less than eight hours a night, she said.
In her approximate 20-minute presentation, she also pointed out how more sleep helps middle and high school students have a better diet, prevent sports injuries, achieve more in the classroom and engage less in risky behavior.
“So the question becomes: Does moving school start times back actually help students? And the answer is yes,” she said.
A three-year study funded by the CDC showed that with students with a 7:30 a.m. start time like Warsaw, only about 33 percent get eight hours of sleep a night; at 8:20 a.m., that number goes to 50 percent; and at 8:55 a.m., 66 percent get eight hours of sleep.
After Ryser’s presentation, Superintendent Dr. David Hoffert thanked her and pointed out that looking at a later start time for the high school and two middle schools came up with the school district’s Initiative Team about two years ago.
“It was last year at this time that we did a large group of survey work to take a look at a lot of the issues and a lot of the things coming outside the school that need to be changed to be able to make that possible,” Hoffert said.
Ryser said the more she read the research to prepare for her presentation, the more she realized it was bigger than she thought. “The more I read, these are staggering numbers, I thought,” she said, adding that the evidence is “overwhelming” and wasn’t going to go away.
