Many students push the snooze button on their alarm clocks to get those couple of extra minutes of sleep. In the beginning of the month of September 2018, Governor Jerry Brown of California signed a bill pushing the start of schools in the state of California. The bill requires pushing back the start of a regular school day to as late as 8:00 a.m. or 8:30 a.m. Since many students are suffering from sleep deprivation, many people suggested pushing back school times in order for students to get more sleep and do  better in school.

Studies have shown that this lack of sleep has caused more depressed teenagers and more car accidents. In addition, teenagers seem to do worse in school and become less focused when they are not getting enough sleep. After completing a test with students who didn’t sleep and with students who slept around eight hours, test results showed the significant downfall in the students who were sleep deprived (tandfonline.com). Most students have been getting less than eight hours of sleep when science has proven that they should be getting at least eight to nine hours of sleep every day.

This bill was attempted before, but failed for several reasons. To begin, people thought that students would still not get enough sleep, it would cost them more, and it would mess up their schedules like with buses and extracurricular activities. Taking these concerns into consideration, this new bill exempts rural school districts; which means Yorba Linda High School should be included in the bill. Some schools already started making the move towards a later start. California  schools have until 2021 to figure out bus routes and class schedules. Carpooling could be a potential solution to the problem.

After asking several students for  their thoughts about this bill, several people had different opinions of the matter. For example, Safia Khan (12) admires the idea of “starting school later because it will give [her] the chance to get more sleep which will let [her] focus better.” At the same time, Kathleen Toblesky (12) argues that “school starting later is not a good thing because it will not give [her] the chance to leave as early as [she is] leaving now.”  Clearly, these students have completely different opinions on the matter. No matter what, the students will need to adjust to whatever schedule they need to go by.

Sources: nytimes.com