Much is being made in the news lately claiming a study has determined that middle and high school students need more sleep, and if the school day starts later, the students perform better with that extra hour or so of sleep.

Apparently children who ride the school bus have to get up really early. I know the bus comes by my house at 6:45 a.m. This would mean that a student, in order to get up, shower or freshen up, dress, and grab some breakfast (unless they eat at school) would conceivably need to get up at 5:30 to 5:45 a.m. depending on how well they navigate in early morning.
I admit to being slow to awaken in the morning.  I need a good two hours from the time I get up to when I wake up and have to be somewhere.

We have a couple of teachers living near us and I am aware of them leaving very early in the morning. They also each have three school age children to get up and ready for school. Think how early they must arise in order to accomplish this.

My own daughter, a teacher, arises at 5:30 a.m. daily during the school year so she can beat the kids to school. This necessitates going to bed by 9 or 9:30 p.m. if she wants to get her needed 8 hours of sleep a night and be able to function.

The down side of starting school later in the day is said by school districts to be that school day lasts later in the day and that takes away from evening family time and part-time work opportunities for high school students.

The old adage of “early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise,” may or may not be true if we are to believe the new study.