As we celebrate and wind down the school year, please keep in mind that our teens are finishing a 10 month run of chronic sleep deprivation. Two thirds of high school students get less than 7 hours of sleep a night while the recommendation is 8.5-9.5 hours per night.
We are not alone in pushing for later school start times. School districts in 46 states have either moved to later start times or are moving to them in the upcoming school year.
https://www.startschoollater.net/success-stories.html
SSL Quotes of the month: “It’s kind of similar to car seats. ‘Well, we didn’t have car seats, so we don’t really need them.’ And then all of a sudden it’s like, well, yeah, we do need car seats.... I think part of this also is that there is a lot of pushback against science. People don’t want to hear, ‘Here’s what the science shows, and this is important.’"
— Pediatrician Eric O’Banion, MD, as reported in The Herald Bulletin
"Starting school later was the most significant and beneficial decision I made in all the years I was an educator."
---Kenneth Dragseth, Ph.D, Retired Superintendent, Edina Public Schools, Minnesota