Maine news, sports, weather from Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram, Portland, Maine

September 10, 2012

Too tired for school? Science on teens' side

Sleep experts say many Maine high schools start classes too early in the day for teenagers.

By SUSAN MCMILLAN Kennebec Journal

AUGUSTA - Cony High School sophomore Shaun Gallagher has had a year to adjust to starting school at 7:10 a.m.

But he's not there yet.

"Sometimes I'll just randomly have lots of energy, but some days I'm really sluggish and not really awake until 10:30," he said.

Although they're twins, Shaun's brother, Noah, said he's a morning person and feels ready to go at the first bell. "But I know that a lot of my friends complain about the schedule still," Noah said.

Noah Gallagher is probably an anomaly among teenagers, but Cony's schedule is hardly unique in expecting students to learn well before 8 a.m. Many Maine high schools start classes at times that sleep experts say run counter to adolescent biology.

"Their little brains are still asleep at 8 o'clock in the morning, but most of them are sitting in a classroom for an hour," said Martine Eon, interim practice manager at the Maine Sleep Institute, which is an eight-bed center at Maine Medical Center in Portland that specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of sleeping disorders.

School schedules tend to be based on non-academic factors such as sports and extracurricular activities, transportation arrangements and parents' desire to see children off to school before work or have older children home in the afternoon to supervise younger siblings.

Cony Middle School began at 8:20 a.m. last year but has shifted to 7:10 to coordinate with the high school, which is in the same building. Some teachers have classes in both schools, and Principal Jim Anastasio said the faculty requested the change.

"We found that with kids on two different schedules and teachers on two different schedules it never allowed reasonable professional development to take place," Anastasio said. "Some teachers came in earlier than others, some teachers left earlier than others. It was really disjointed."

NO EARLIER THAN 8:15

A hormone called melatonin maintains humans' internal daily clock or circadian rhythm. Darkness triggers the release of melatonin in the brain, making young children feel sleepy as early as 7 p.m. and adults about 9 p.m.

Teenagers, however, don't feel its effects until about 11 p.m., and they need at least nine hours of sleep, Eon said.

When Minneapolis public schools shifted high school starts from 7:15 a.m. to 8:40 a.m., teachers in suburban schools noted less tardiness and fewer disciplinary problems. Massachusetts middle schools showed similar results in a different study, and one Kentucky county had fewer car crashes when high schools started an hour later.

Finley Edwards, a visiting assistant professor of economics at Colby College, studied middle schools in Wake County, N.C., and found that starting at 8:30 rather than 7:30 increased standardized test scores by at least 2 percentage points in math and 1 point in reading. The largest improvements were among students with below-average test scores.

Edwards said he would expect to see similar effects in Maine and recommends that school start no earlier than 8:15 or 8:30.

"I think the reason why so many schools have moved to starting earlier is to save money on transportation costs," he said. "But the money saved is completely wiped out in terms of the cost of student performance that we're losing by starting schools early."

Maranacook Community High School Principal Carol Fritz agreed that transportation determines school schedules.

"They have nothing to do with the kids," Fritz said. "They have to do with bus schedules. So lots of high schools start earlier than elementary schools because the buses will run and pick up the high school kids, and then they'll run again and get the elementary kids."

Few school districts own enough buses to get everyone to school at the same time. Elementary schools almost always start last because parents do not want young children waiting for the bus in darkness during winter, and it reduces the amount of time between school dismissal and parents getting off from work.

(Continued on page 2)

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