In the state of Massachusetts, the current average high school start time in Massachusetts is 7:38am. I petition that we push back school start times to be at around 8am.

High schoolers naturally fall asleep up to two hours later young children and young adults due to all of the pubescent processes taking place in their bodies. Their internal biological clock tells them to sleep later, despite being forced into a schedule requiring them to wake up early. On average, high schoolers sleep less than 7 hours a night despite the daily recommended minimum for their age group being 9 hours. Decreased sleep leads to increased anxiety, depression, and stress levels. It is unfair to force students into a schedule that makes them have to choose between maintaining their health and succeeding academically. 

There are concerns regarding the potential impacts such a change could have on traffic, but pushing back school start times wouldn't negatively impact traffic. Traffic won't increase if we push back school start times by swapping high school start times, which are at about 7:38am on average, and elementary school start times, which are about 8:10am on average. This would benefit adolescent students without harming the health of our younger students, as younger students naturally tend to wake up earlier.