2023-05-07 21:42:29
In the hours before his due date at Upper Darby High School, senior Khalid Doulat finds time to pray, help his mother or prepare for track practice.
It’s a welcome change from last year for him and thousands of students at the school in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, which pushed its start time back by more than two hours, from 7:30 a.m. to 9:45 a.m. A goal for change: easing tensions on students that were more visible than ever after the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I’ll be honest, I’ve been a lot happier in the mornings,” Doulat said. “I’ve been more positive and come to school smiling more instead of, you know, begrudgingly getting out of bed and stuff like that at 7:30.”
The idea of later school start times, pushed by many over the years as a way to help teens get more sleep, is taking on a new look as a way to address the mental health crisis plaguing adolescents in the US.
For some schools, the pandemic allowed for experimentation to test new schedules. Upper Darby, for its part, initially considered later start times in 2019. Ultimately, it found a way to do it this year by using distance learning as a component of the school day.
When students first returned to in-person learning, many dealt with mental health issues and behavior issues, Upper Darby Superintendent Daniel McGarry said. Officials saw a breakdown in students regarding the authority of teachers in the classroom.
“We had a lot of those things that we were up against and we’re still working to get past them; we’re in a much better place,” McGarry said. “I think our children feel better. They’re not 100% better.” But, he said, much of the social anxiety students felt after being in school online has dissipated.
During the pandemic, large numbers of high school students expressed persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness, with girls and LGBTQ+ youth reporting the highest levels of mental ill-health and suicide attempts. It doesn’t help that research suggests middle and high school students don’t get enough sleep.
“These mental health challenges are already going to happen and then with sleep deprivation they will be much worse,” said Orfeu Buxton, director of the Sleep, Health & Society Collaborative at Penn State University. “Same with decision making, suicidal ideation, that kind of thing.”
The parents of Arlette Garcia, who has dwarfism, have reported that their daughter is being physically assaulted at the school she attends in Mission and want changes in the way the school district handles bullying and insults from her peers on campus. .
The reasons high schools start as early as they do, many starting their day before 7:30 a.m., are “lost in the sands of history,” Buxton said. patterns, bus schedules, and adult work.”
Nationwide, at least nine states are considering legislation related to school start times, up from four the previous year, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. California in 2019 became the first and only state to dictate school start times.
Large school systems, including Denver, Philadelphia and Anchorage, Alaska, have been seeking later start times.
It may require innovation to forge a new schedule.
At Upper Darby High, the school day technically still begins at 7:30 a.m., and students are assigned coursework to complete remotely that ties into their lessons for the day. But they can use the early morning hours however they see fit: they can meet with teachers during office hours, sleep in, or finish other assignments. Ultimately, the work assigned for the early morning should be done, but when is up to the students.
“I think getting more sleep is definitely helping,” Elise Olmstead, junior. “I would be more irritable throughout the day, especially later, because I have a lot going on after school. It would be more difficult for me to get through the day.”
The school day still ends at 3 p.m.
Fatima Afrani, a freshman, said that when she gets home, she usually relaxes and then helps her mom or does homework.
“If I’m tired I go to sleep, something I couldn’t do last year. Last year I only had to do my homework because there was no option to do it later,” he said. “So I liked that if I was tired, I could listen to my body and just let myself sleep.”
Principal Matthew Alloway said educators have noticed fewer students sleeping in class. The new schedule has also allowed “kids to go to school for exactly what they need to,” he said. About 400 of the school’s 4,250 students attend via virtual learning alone, an option it offers to compete with online schools.
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Critics have argued that students have less instructional time on the new schedule. The original 80-minute periods have been shortened, but Alloway said it’s not like lectures always fill the full 80 minutes.
“Sometimes it was a 60-minute concentrated instructional time. But then there was time to write. There was time to read. There was time to watch a video, ”she said.
Other challenges brought on by the pandemic, such as teacher shortages, have also benefited from the time change, administrators said. Teachers can take care of themselves and their families in the morning. Managers have more time to fill in for employees who are absent sick.
Doulat, the Upper Darby senior, said that even if students can’t see the effects every day, there has been a huge positive impact.
“These are such small changes in our daily lives that we don’t notice them,” he added. “But slowly they start to add up, and we actually see the difference within our own lives.”
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