Petition for Later High School Start Time Gains National Attention
Patch communities across the country are responding to Severna Park resident Terra Snider's most recent online petition on later high school start times.
Editor's Note: Terra Snider's first online petition through the We the People website first appeared on Severna Park Patch in October. The Patch poll on the topic had 279 respondents with 84 percent in favor of later high school start times. Since then, a new online petition was created at signon.org. The topic has started discussions throughout the country, including 20 Patch sites and the petition is mentioned in an article "Could Later School Start Times Improve Academic Performance?" in Sleeping Resources magazine.
Here's an update on the latest petition from Terra Snider:
In just over a month, the petition is closing in on 1,200 names from 45 states—and has begun galvanizing a national coalition of parents, teachers, doctors, nurses, sleep scientists and caregivers.
The Patch network has played a major role in this progress (to date we've been covered in 20 different communities), as have other online news outlets.
We were also featured this week by the national online magazine Sleeping Resources.
Meanwhile, a national discussion is building around this issue, which concerns health, safety and equity as much as education. New online articles about the importance of sleep and its connection to school start times appear almost daily, many of them mentioning our petition. The latest—a must-read—is psychiatrist Jeff Deitz's piece on the Huffington Post. He predicts that "It's only a matter of time until the family of someone killed when a teenager falls asleep at the wheel brings action for reckless endangerment. School board members and superintendents need to wake up now, before they receive the subpoena."
Dr. Deitz notes that high schools should begin no earlier than 8:45 or even 9 a.m.
Just last week Cleveland, TN schools announced that they're moving to later start times next year, while Amherst, MA schools put a new proposal to do so on the table.
Some of this progress is based on two new, important studies showing how "penny wise, pound foolish" we are in continuing to send our children to school in the dark:
1) A report from the Brookings Institution showing that later high school start times improve academic achievement by 0.175 standard deviations (with disadvantaged students benefiting twice as much as others) and increases students' lifetime earnings gains by $17,500/student while costing school districts between $0.00 and $1,950 per student, a benefit/cost ratio of 9:1 or better; and
2) A study of first-year U.S. Air Force Academy students showed that those starting classes before 8 a.m. performed worse not only in their first-period courses but in all their courses.
Despite this compelling evidence, at least one school is actually considering moving backwards from 8:05 a.m. to 7:14 a.m. next year. That their administration and school board can promote this change despite claiming to be aware of how harmful such hours are to health and wellbeing illustrates precisely why we can’t rely on local school systems alone to choose the kids’ interests when they have to battle so many other powerful, competing forces.
Our goal now is to grow the petition to 5,000 names, the number required by our original We the People petition, and then deliver it in person to selected decision makers in DC. If you support this cause, here are three ways you can help:
1) Sign the petition if you haven't already done so, and post the link to your Facebook page if you have one.
2) If you've already signed the petition, please help us grow it! Email friends, and at the very least ask everyone in your household with an email address to add their name. If everyone who signed the petition simply got five more people on board, we'd be over our goal.
3) Check out our website (StartSchoolLater.net) to keep tabs on news and other opportunities to be involved.
4) If you work in the health professions, please encourage your local, state, or national organizations to endorse our petition and/or our effort to promote safe, healthy school start times.
5) Share your thoughts with our county, state and national representatives.
Heather Macintosh
7:47 am on Tuesday, December 13, 2011
I would like to see this change benefit my kids before they're finished high school. The science is clear. The only thing standing in the way is the politics. Come on, let's do this!
Terra Ziporyn Snider, Ph.D.
8:41 am on Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Good news from Wisconsin (at least for now), where the Menomonee Falls school board delayed a plan to move start times even earlier! (See http://menomoneefalls.patch.com/articles/school-board-delays-decision-on-high-school-start-time ). One of our partners in the national coalition from Greenfield, WI, was there to see it happen. The fact that a school system can even consider doing something like this, knowing what we now know, suggests that it's going to take a lot more than evidence, logic, and common sense to win this battle.
Catherine thomas
10:51 am on Tuesday, December 13, 2011
I am hopeful that there will be change. My children will not see it, but I do feel it is coming. I started school at 9:00am from 1962 to 1974. I'm not sure when and why this absurd notion of putting children on the side of the road between 5:30 and 6:45 became fashionable. It is very close to abuse in my mind and it must stop. I am waiting for our local pediatricians to make a stand.
Tulip
8:17 pm on Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Yes I agree it is abuse not only for children but for adults as well. I have been feeling depressed for a year due to lack of sleep, feeling like I'm in a coma with headaches and yawning all day for a whole year and don't have energy to do anything in my life, ever since my son started high school at 7:30 and has to get up at 6:00a.m . I have to force myself to go to sleep at 9:30 to be able to fall asleep by 10 p.m till 6 a.m. The only time I feel alive and alert is after 8 hours of sleep otherwise my eyelids are half closed.
Tulip
8:24 pm on Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Also, no matter how much i force myself to go to sleep at 9:30 it doesn't happen because I only get sleepy at 11 p.m. Studies show that melatonin that causes drowsiness is produced only by 11 p.m and I think it's because humans have evolved this way since they turn off the lights later than when it gets dark outside naturally at 6 p.m., maybe if we turned off the lights earlier our melatonin would be produced earlier. Also, neighbors make noise if you are living in an apt complex and the only way to get some sleep is after 11p.m when it is illegal at that time to disturb neighbors. They should make 9:00 p.m then the do not disturb neighbors time if they want us to get up earlier. it's almost as if some conspiracy to cause more depression, and ADHD disorder due to lack of sleep to be able to prescribe more drugs? Bipolar and adhd people probably have a chemical imbalance due to lack of sleep that is why it is the teenage years when it usually starts since teenagers are the ones lacking the most sleep.
Monica Resa
3:02 pm on Tuesday, December 13, 2011
As an adult who has dealt with sleep issues I know how debilitating and all-consuming not enough sleep can be - it literally changes your whole life the lives of those around you. My children are still in elementary school and I hope that by the time they reach high school this is no longer a topic we are discussing. The science is there. My high school in the late 80's early 90's started at 9am EST and it has produced many productive thinkers, leaders, and citizens. Thank you, Terra, and Patch for keeping the fight!
Tulip
8:27 pm on Wednesday, January 18, 2012
True, now more and more people are diagnosed as bipolar and ADHD? It's a no brainer to why this is happening. LACK OF SLEEP.
Maribel Ibrahim
8:01 pm on Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Be sure to join StartSchoolLater.net for a Winter Solstice Party!
Details can be found on Facebook here:
http://www.facebook.com/events/132404763537801/
Terra Ziporyn Snider, Ph.D.
3:06 pm on Thursday, December 15, 2011
Whoa - our petition is featured in this NEW online blog (HIGH SCHOOL START TIMES CAUSE SLEEP DEPRIVATION), and the author wants opinions. Please share yours: http://raisingteensblog.wordpress.com/2011/12/12/high-schools-should-start-later/
Terra Ziporyn Snider, Ph.D.
6:27 pm on Friday, December 16, 2011
The Associate Director of the Sleep Medicine Program at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville, TN just signed & endorsed this petition! I know some people think this is about "coddling kids," but the pediatricians, neurologists, psychiatrist, psychologists, sleep scientists, nurses, social workers, & educators who are signing are petition disagree. If you agree, please read what they've written as comments on the petition, and add your name. It's time do what's right for kids instead of bus efficiency! http://signon.org/sign/promote-legislation-to.fb1?source=s.fb&r_by=1521139
Terra Ziporyn Snider, Ph.D.
9:43 am on Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Check out this outstanding, but sad, video made this morning by Catherine Thomas at 6:30 a.m.: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTvOEgV9Geo&context=C3f52adeADOEgsToPDskKK0IvnXe3NsOr3z9Loteiv "It is shocking to me," she says, "This is a horrible thing that we're asking our children to do 5 days a week. And it should stop."
Terra Ziporyn Snider, Ph.D.
11:48 am on Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Our petition is featured in the Renton (WA) Patch today: http://renton.patch.com/articles/national-petition-started-for-later-high-school-start-time
Terra Ziporyn Snider, Ph.D.
9:01 am on Thursday, December 29, 2011
Yesterday we were featured in two WA State Patches; today the petition & StartSchoolLater.net (the growing national coalition that started right here in SP!) are in the Fairfield, CT Patch: http://fairfield.patch.com/articles/later-start-time-for-high-schools
Terra Ziporyn Snider, Ph.D.
1:47 pm on Thursday, January 5, 2012
If you haven't looked at the petition for later school start times lately, check it out! The comments from all over the country are so inspiring, and so gratifying. We're now over 1,700 names (over 200 in the past day after coverage by Connecticut Patch papers!). Amazing to think this all started in the Severna Park Patch. The link to the petition is http://signon.org/sign/promote-legislation-to.fb1?source=s.fb&r_by=1521139
Terra Ziporyn Snider, Ph.D.
4:45 pm on Sunday, January 8, 2012
Just passed the 2000 name mark on the petition to start school later (http://bit.ly/tWa4dS). With 3000 more, this is going to DC!
Terra Ziporyn Snider, Ph.D.
9:04 pm on Wednesday, January 18, 2012
We're now more than halfway to our goal of 5,000 names, amazingly! Even more amazing is the interest we've had from all over the country, resulting in a growing national coalition with an Advisory Board that includes health professionals, sleep scientists, and educators from places including Harvard Medical School, Univ. of California Berkeley, and the National Association of State Boards of Education (some of these people actually came to us after reading stories in the SP Patch!). You can check them out - and see what else we're doing - at StartSchoolLater.net....Meanwhile, thanks to everyone for all your support so far, and I'll share more news soon.
Terra Ziporyn Snider, Ph.D.
10:15 am on Sunday, January 22, 2012
You can now hear about the petition (http://bit.ly/tWa4dS) via podcast on the Sleep Doctor Radio show. Go to http://sleepdoctorradio.com/radio-show, and click the link for the interview with me on Jan. 15, 2012. The three sleep specialists interviewing me did my work for me by explaining why the health profession thinks later school start times are a no brainer!
Terra Ziporyn Snider, Ph.D.
7:15 am on Wednesday, January 25, 2012
People from all 50 states as well as DC have now signed the petition (http://bit.ly/tWa4dS). Amazing to think it all started right here in the Severna Park Patch! Now we need to keep sharing the link so we can get to 5000 names ASAP (we're over 2700 right now).