(The opinions and views expressed in the commentaries and letters to the Editor of The Somerville Times belong solely to the authors and do not reflect the views or opinions of The Somerville Times, its staff or publishers)

I am a 7th grade teacher at the Arthur D. Healey School in Somerville. I recently had my students write editorials on why school start times should be later for teenagers.  — Emma Daniels

By Lan Patterson-Vides, 7th Grader at the Arthur D Healey School

Here’s a question, do you like zombies? Brainless, Braindead piles of flesh, you like those? No? Well what if I told you that almost every teen is a zombie. Well, they aren’t really rotting undead corpses, but from the moment most teens wake up, they are so tired that they basically are zombies. Now why is this? It’s because teens have to get up to the horribly early start times of most schools. 7:45 A.M., 7:15 A.M., 7 freaking A.M.! They also have to get up an hour before the start of school, so most kids are waking up at 6 in the morning! They also have to stay up late doing homework, so most teens end up running on about 4 hours of sleep! And they are expected to learn and be engaged! So now you see why almost every single teen is a zombie, and if you don’t, well you have the rest of this gosh darn paper to read.

In the years 2014 and 2016, two articles were published. “The Teen Who Woke Up Her School” by Jane Bianchi in 2014, and “Why Schools Are Struggling to Let Students Sleep In” by Alexandra Sifferlin in 2016. They provide mountains of evidence on why schools should start later.

A simple solution that you might think to solve this problem of sleepy teens, just have them go to sleep earlier. Well good news, they could do that, if it wasn’t for one thing: reality. According to Paragraph 2 of, “Why Schools Are Struggling to Let Students Sleep In”, “Sleep phase delay … [makes] it biologically unfeasible for some teens to go to bed before 11 p.m. and wake up before 8 a.m.” This proves that even if teens wanted to sleep at a reasonable hour, and they had the time, they couldn’t. Their bodily changes would get in the way of that. There are these things called growth hormones and, “When [growth hormones] start [to] course through your body around midnight, it … blocks melatonin, the hormone that’s meant to kick in and make you drowsy.” (Paragraph 8) This means that even when they are ready to go to sleep, they can’t because their mind blocks the chemical that is supposed to make them sleep. No wonder why teens are basically asleep when they get to school, they couldn’t get any. Now you see why we should start schools later, so they don’t have to rush when they are half-awake. They could have some time to adjust to being awake before having to be ready to learn.

“So say if we did make school start earlier, what good would that do for their learning experience?” You may ask. Well, as I already mentioned, they would be more awake but also, according to Paragraph 3 of the “Why Schools Are Struggling to Let Students Sleep In” article, “Among adolescents, getting the recommended amount of sleep (around nine hours) has been linked to higher test scores and better behavior.” And according to Paragraph 12 of the “The Teen Who Woke Up Her School” article, “After a good night’s rest, you’re more alert, and it’s easier to solve problems, process and remember information, and be creative. Research has also linked sleep to higher test scores.” These both show how when students get the sleep they need, they do better at school. As opposed to now, where great students aren’t getting good grades because they are tired throughout the school day. These students can’t get enough sleep because they stay up late doing homework, the chemicals in their brain, as I mentioned before, and because they have to wake up very early in the morning to get to school on time. So now you can definitely see why schools should start later.

Now that you are 100% convinced that schools should start later, let me share with you some of the more detailed accounts of students’ sleep schedules. According to Paragraph 1 of the “The Teen Who Woke Up Her School” article, “[Jilly Dos Santos] On a typical school night … was lucky if she got four to six hours of sleep.” and Paragraph 9 of the same article, “Your brain … needs … [a] total [amount] of sleep (about 9.25 [hours] a night) to function at its best. Sadly, most teens are able to squeeze in only about 7.1 hours, on average.” This shows that teens are not getting the recommended amount of sleep that they need to perform optimally. They are actually getting significantly less sleep than they need. And why is this? Well, you probably have guessed by now, but surprise, surprise, it’s because school starts super freaking early. Just put yourself in the shoes of these poor kids. Having to go through a very difficult school day, educationally and socially, while being half-functioning. It sucks, right? Well how do we fix this. That’s right, we make school start later. That would give the kids time to wake up and have an actual fun day at school.

In conclusion, now you see why all teens are zombies. And if you don’t, here’s a reminder. All teens are basically zombies because they have to wake up very early to get to school on time. They can’t go to sleep early because the chemicals in their brain refuse to let them do so. And they don’t get anywhere close to the recommended amount of sleep. But if we moved the school start time to later, that would make students start school less tired, engaged and ready to learn. It would also make kids perform better in school. Capisce? Sadly, you reading this probably can’t do anything about this situation, but you can help in other ways. You could join a rally, sign a petition or two, heck, just spreading the word is very helpful. If you don’t think those small things would help, you would be mistaken. Schools all around the country are making schools start later. All of the students going to those schools are most likely very thankful for those changes.