Mar 14, 2019 3 min read

The work day alarm clock blares way too early for some adults.

They drag themselves out of bed, getting moving and ready, downing caffeine to get moving along.

It’s a struggle that adults are expected to undertake. It’s also one that most high schoolers can understand — even though studies going back five years warn that teens and adolescents shouldn’t have to because their bodies just aren’t equipped for early rising.

Since 2014, a series of leading medical groups, like the American Academy of Pediatrics, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and the American Medical Association, have been encouraging schools to push back start times based on studies which found the natural sleep patterns of teenagers and adolescents change.

Essentially, the science says puberty leads teens to get sleepy later at night. Schools, however, are prone to impose the earliest start (and necessary wake up) times on those going to bed the latest. Getting less than eight hours of sleep at night has been found to not only adversely affect a students’ grades, but also to potentially lead to serious health risks like depression, substance abuse, sports injuries or even increase the risk for their involvement in automobile accidents.

That’s not problem unique to Fayette County or even Pennsylvania. Studies found no schools in Hawaii, Mississippi or Wyoming start after 8:30 a.m., while most schools in North Dakota and Alaska started after 8:30 a.m., the CDC found. The agency reported that 42 states reported most of their middle and high school students start the school day before 8:30 a.m.

With these things in mind, kudos to the school board in the Connellsville Area School District, which decided last week to form a committee to explore how feasible it may be to implement later start times.

The committee will seek input from administrators, teachers, parents and other community members, with the hope of getting a wide range of opinions from the many stakeholders who would feel the impact of the change.

And the ripples of this type of adjustment are likely to be many: transportation, parental work schedules, adjustments work time for administration, teachers and staff.

Currently, Connellsville Area Senior High School classes begin at 7:13 a.m. with buses arriving between 6:50 and 7:05 a.m. Some students who are bused to the high school from the outlying areas of the district catch their buses as early as before 6 a.m., according to the CASD website. Middle school classes begin at 7:22 a.m.

We are eager to see what the stakeholders in Connellsville will identify in terms of hurdles, and how they may be overcome. While later start times may prove to be a difficulty – in many ways – the district’s willingness to explore the matter is a testament to officials’ concern for what will best set their students up for success.

Hopefully others in the area will follow their lead.