Start School Later

Last updated

Start School Later, aka Healthy Hours, is a non-profit organization in the United States. [1] [2] [3] Founded in 2011 after Maryland-based science writer Terra Ziporyn Snider started an online petition via We the People that brought together [4] grassroots advocates, sleep researchers, pediatricians, social workers, and educators, [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] the coalition aims to help communities delay school starting times; ensure safe, healthy school hours; and provide sleep education programs for students and school communities. [10]

Start School Later currently has 137 volunteer-led chapters in 3 countries, 31 US states and Washington, D.C., has been featured in Beme, [11] The Huffington Post, [12] and Psychiatric News, [13] and has received media coverage and editorial support in publications including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, NPR, BBC Brasil, WGBH, and The Washington Post. [14] [15] In 2013 U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan tweeted his support for later high school start times, [16] and since 2014 the American Academy of Pediatrics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the American Medical Association, the Society of Behavioral Medicine, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, and the American Association of Sleep Technologists have issued policy statements recommending that middle and high schools start no earlier than 8:30 a.m. [17] In 2019 it sponsored with the California State PTA, the first US statewide legislation explicitly designed to protect and recognize the importance of adolescent sleep health by aligning secondary school hours with the substantial body of scientific evidence regarding adolescent sleep needs and timing.

In April 2017, Start School Later - together with the RAND Corporation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and Yale School of Medicine's Department of Pediatrics and Section on Pulmonary, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine - co-sponsored the first-ever national conference on Adolescent Sleep, Health, and School Start Times. In 2019, legislation co-sponsored by Start School Later and the California State PTA made California the first state in the nation to set a floor on how early middle and high schools can require attendance. [18] In 2021, Start School Later received the American Academy of Sleep Medicine Foundation's Sleep Champion Award

Related Research Articles

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) is the largest professional association of pediatricians in the United States. It is headquartered in Itasca, Illinois, and maintains an office in Washington, D.C. The AAP has published hundreds of policy statements, ranging from advocacy issues to practice recommendations.

Adolescent medicine also known as adolescent and young adult medicine is a medical subspecialty that focuses on care of patients who are in the adolescent period of development. This period begins at puberty and lasts until growth has stopped, at which time adulthood begins. Typically, patients in this age range will be in the last years of middle school up until college graduation. In developed nations, the psychosocial period of adolescence is extended both by an earlier start, as the onset of puberty begins earlier, and a later end, as patients require more years of education or training before they reach economic independence from their parents.

The sexuality of US adolescents includes their feelings, behaviors and development, and the place adolescent sexuality has in American society, including the response of the government, educators, parents, and other interested groups.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carola B. Eisenberg</span> American psychiatrist (1917–2021)

Carola Blitzman Eisenberg was an Argentine-American psychiatrist who became the first woman to hold the position of dean of students at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. From 1978 to 1990, she was the dean of student affairs at Harvard Medical School (HMS). She has for a long time been lecturer in the newly renamed Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at HMS. She was also both a founding member of Physicians for Human Rights and an honorary psychiatrist with the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, a longstanding position there.

Caffeine-induced sleep disorder is a psychiatric disorder that results from overconsumption of the stimulant caffeine. Caffeine is one of the most widely consumed psychoactive drugs: almost 90% of Americans in a survey consume some type of caffeine each day. "When caffeine is consumed immediately before bedtime or .... throughout the day, sleep onset may be delayed, total sleep time reduced, normal stages of sleep altered, and the quality of sleep decreased." Caffeine reduces slow-wave sleep in the early part of the sleep cycle and can reduce rapid eye movement sleep later in the cycle. Caffeine increases episodes of wakefulness, and high doses in the late evening can increase sleep onset latency. In elderly people, there is an association between use of medication containing caffeine and difficulty in falling asleep.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Timeline of sexual orientation and medicine</span>

Timeline of events related to sexual orientation and medicine

Sleep deprivation, also known as sleep insufficiency or sleeplessness, is the condition of not having adequate duration and/or quality of sleep to support decent alertness, performance, and health. It can be either chronic or acute and may vary widely in severity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Depression in childhood and adolescence</span> Pediatric depressive disorders

Depression is a mental disorder which is characterized by prolonged unhappiness or irritability. It is accompanied by a constellation of somatic and cognitive signs and symptoms such as fatigue, apathy, sleep problems, loss of appetite, loss of engagement, low self-regard/worthlessness, difficulty concentrating or indecisiveness, or recurrent thoughts of death or suicide.

The media and American adolescent sexuality relates to the effect the media has on the sexuality of American adolescents and the portrayal thereof.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Screen time</span> Time spent on any device with a screen

Screen time is the amount of time spent using a device with a screen such as a smartphone, computer, television, or video game console. The concept is under significant research with related concepts in digital media use and mental health. Screen time is correlated with mental and physical harm in child development. The positive or negative health effects of screen time are influenced by levels and content of exposure. To prevent harmful exposure to screen time, some governments have placed regulations on its usage.

In the United States, the start school later movement is an interdisciplinary effort by health professionals, sleep researchers, educators, community advocates, parents, students, and other concerned citizens working for school hours that give students an opportunity to get enough sleep at optimal times. It bases its claims on a growing body of evidence that starting middle and high schools too early in the morning is unhealthy, counterproductive, and incompatible with adolescent sleep needs and patterns. During the second half of the 20th century, many public schools in the United States began shifting instructional time earlier than the more conventional bell time, thought out 9 a.m. Today it is common for American schools to begin the instructional day in the 7 a.m. hour and end about seven hours later, around 2 p.m. Most sleep research suggests that morning classes should begin no earlier than 8:30 a.m. for middle and high school students.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Daniel Offer</span> American psychiatrist

Daniel Offer was a psychiatrist and scholar who challenged prevailing beliefs that adolescence is inherently a time of storm and stress. His Offer Longitudinal Study was one of the first studies of typical youth over time and demonstrated that most pass through adolescence adequately happy and connected to families and others. This contribution shifted fundamentally how adolescent development was understood scientifically and provoked recognition that theory from patient populations was inadequate. He is also remembered for his scholarship on normality, the viability of memory, the Offer Self Image Questionnaire and for fostering the field of adolescent developmental studies.

David A. Brent is an American psychiatrist with expertise in child and adolescent psychiatry and suicidology. He is Professor of Psychiatry, Pediatrics & Epidemiology and Endowed Chair in Suicide Studies at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, as well as the academic chief of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mental health in education</span>

Mental health in education is the impact that mental health has on educational performance. Mental health often viewed as an adult issue, but in fact, almost half of adolescents in the United States are affected by mental disorders, and about 20% of these are categorized as “severe.” Mental health issues can pose a huge problem for students in terms of academic and social success in school. Education systems around the world treat this topic differently, both directly through official policies and indirectly through cultural views on mental health and well-being. These curriculums are in place to effectively identify mental health disorders and treat it using therapy, medication, or other tools of alleviation.

Barbara N. Horowitz, M.D., is a cardiologist, academic and author. She is a professor of medicine in the Division of Cardiology at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and a visiting professor in the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University and has been on the faculty of Harvard Medical School since 2020. Horowitz is a New York Times bestselling author of the book Zoobiquity on the subject of a cross-species approach to medicine which includes veterinary and evolutionary perspectives. In 2019, Horowitz and Bowers co-authored their second book, Wildhood.

The relationships between digital media use and mental health have been investigated by various researchers—predominantly psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists, and medical experts—especially since the mid-1990s, after the growth of the World Wide Web. A significant body of research has explored "overuse" phenomena, commonly known as "digital addictions", or "digital dependencies". These phenomena manifest differently in many societies and cultures. Some experts have investigated the benefits of moderate digital media use in various domains, including in mental health, and the treatment of mental health problems with novel technological solutions.

Adolescent sleep is typically poor in duration and quality. Sleep duration and quality reduce to suboptimal levels, and sleep duration variability and latency increases during adolescence. Sleep recommendations suggest that adolescents should obtain 8–10 hours of sleep per night. Additionally, there is a shift in the body's circadian rhythm such that sleep and wake timings become later during adolescence. Technology, social factors, and physical development are thought to contribute to poor sleep during this time. Poor sleep duration and quality in adolescents has been linked with altered brain functioning and development, poor mental and physical health, as well as higher rates of disease and mortality. The concerns surrounding poor sleep during adolescence has garnered significant public attention, especially concerning policies related to school start times.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Behavioral sleep medicine</span>

Behavioral sleep medicine (BSM) is a field within sleep medicine that encompasses scientific inquiry and clinical treatment of sleep-related disorders, with a focus on the psychological, physiological, behavioral, cognitive, social, and cultural factors that affect sleep, as well as the impact of sleep on those factors. The clinical practice of BSM is an evidence-based behavioral health discipline that uses primarily non-pharmacological treatments. BSM interventions are typically problem-focused and oriented towards specific sleep complaints, but can be integrated with other medical or mental health treatments. The primary techniques used in BSM interventions involve education and systematic changes to the behaviors, thoughts, and environmental factors that initiate and maintain sleep-related difficulties.

Dianne Neumark-Sztainer is a University of Minnesota Regents Professor in the Division of Epidemiology and Community Health at the School of Public Health. She is a scholar on adolescent and young adult eating and weight-related health.

Terra Ziporyn is an American science writer, novelist, playwright, and public health advocate whose books include The New Harvard Guide to Women's Health, Alternative Medicine for Dummies, and Nameless Diseases. She has written extensively on a wide range of health and medical issues for both medical professionals and the general public in publications including The Harvard Health Letter, JAMA, Consumer Reports, CNN, Education Week, Weight Watchers Magazine, Business Week, The Missouri Review, and The Huffington Post. As Terra Ziporyn Snider, her married name, she co-founded and became executive director of Start School Later, a public-health non-profit organization. She lives in Severna Park, Maryland with her husband J.H. Snider. She is the sister of Brook Ziporyn and Evan Ziporyn.

References

  1. "This Woman Is Leading The Charge To Start School Later". HuffPost. 2016-04-21. Retrieved 2023-04-19.
  2. Hoffman, Jan (March 13, 2014). "To Keep Teenagers Alert, Schools Let Them Sleep In". The New York Times. Retrieved October 16, 2014.
  3. Reddy, Sumathi (August 25, 2014). "Teens Need Later Start to School Day, Doctors Group Says". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved October 19, 2014.
  4. "California School Start Time Bill Becomes Law | Psychology Today".
  5. Wolfson, Amy; Ziporyn, Terra (2020). "Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood". In Montgomery-Downs, Hawley (ed.). Sleep Science. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 176–177. ISBN   9780197523308.
  6. Sheldon, Stephen H.; Ferber, Richard; Kryger, Meir; Gozal, David (2014). Principles of Pediatric Sleep Medicine, 2nd Edition. Philadelphia: Elsevier Saunders. p. 293. ISBN   978-1-4557-0318-0.
  7. National Poll on Children's Health. Parents Conflicted About Later Start Times for Teens. February 16, 2015.
  8. Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Study of Safe and Healthy School Hours. December 2014.
  9. Paul Kelley and Clark Lee. Later School Start Times in Adolescence: Time for Change. Education Commission of the United States. 2014.
  10. Guidestar. "Start School Later Inc: Health, Safety, and Equity in Education".
  11. BEME News (2019-03-27), Should school start later? , retrieved 2019-03-28
  12. "Why School Start Times Play A Huge Role In Kids' Success". HuffPost. 2016-06-09. Retrieved 2023-04-19.
  13. Lamberg, Lynne (2016-08-04). "AMA Recommends Schools Start Later To Improve Teen Sleep". Psychiatric News. 51 (15): 1. doi:10.1176/appi.pn.2016.8a1.
  14. "Log in".
  15. "Editorial Support".
  16. Duncan, Arne (arneduncan). “Common sense to improve student achievement that too few have implemented: let teens sleep more, start school later wapo.st/14WCs4R.” 19 Aug 2013, 6.41 p.m. Tweet
  17. American Academcy of Pediatrics. Policy Statement:School Start Times for Adolescents. Pediatrics 2014 Sep;134(3):642-649. http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2014/08/19/peds.2014-1697
  18. "California becomes first state in the country to push back school start times". Los Angeles Times . 14 October 2019.