School Start Times - Let the Students Decide

For the past year, the New Canaan school board has been debating the topic of school start times and is now proposing a one-hour shift from 7:30 am to 8:30 am at the high school. However, members of the student body, those directly affected by the change, have essentially been left out of this conversation. The goal of the change is to increase sleep hours for teens, which assumes students will wake up an hour later and go to bed at the same time. However, for this to be true many students will be forced to sacrifice important after-school activities, as there will be fewer hours in the day for sports, music lessons, dance/theater rehearsals, homework, after-school employment opportunities and much-needed downtime. Most will be unwilling to give these things up, so later start times will only result in later bedtimes. Teen sleep deprivation is an important issue that should be addressed; however, in focusing only on school start times the school board has failed to consider more significant contributors to sleep deprivation, including workload, testing, and homework over vacations. If the goal is to improve teen health, changing school start times is not the solution!

If you are against the change in school start times for high school students please sign this petition below: