Students everywhere stress about not getting enough sleep on school nights. Recently, in California, a new rule was proposed saying schools can’t start first period before 8:30 in the morning. California Senator, Anthony Portantino, said this change will “put our children’s health and welfare ahead of institutional bureaucracy resistant to change.”

There are a few local schools that have already been planning to adapt to this plan by fall of the 2021 school year. For example, Radnor High School located in Wayne, Pennsylvania will change their start time from 7:35AM to 8:30AM. Some elementary and middle schools including, The Bayard School and The Bancroft School, both in Wilmington, Delaware will also make this change.

Starting classes at 8:30 can have many benefits. It is very common for high school students be extremely busy after school whether it’s because of sports, a job, or just pages upon pages of homework. As a result, starting school later will allow them to gain some extra sleep even if it’s just a half hour. This may also affect the athletes within schools by them getting more rest before a game day. 

Mrs. Rainbow Giaquinto, a member of Padua’s health and physical education department said “Scientifically, especially with sleep patterns for teenagers I can understand why states like California changed their schedules to start later.” 

Giaquinto also said, “Allowing teenagers to get the actual amount of sleep they need with the workload they have would be an extreme benefit. As well as the effort put towards extra curricular classes.” 

Although, the outcome of this plan is expected to be mostly positive there are some concerns. Parents are worried their children won’t have transportation to school because of their jobs. There are plenty of students that take school buses, but for the ones that don’t, starting school later could be a conflict with their parents’ occupation.

Giaquinto being a mother herself, also talked of the convenience of starting work at the same time her child gets to school before 8:30AM. 

Some high school students shared their thoughts about the idea as well. 

 Ava Knighton who attends Padua Academy said, “School starting after 8:30 would be awesome. The extra twenty minutes or so would be nice to have, since I’m already so stressed with school. The last thing I need to worry about is my sleep schedule”