Later Start Has High Schoolers Present and Alert

WASHINGTON — High school students are much less likely to miss classes or stop coming to school regularly if they can sleep later on school mornings, according to the largest study done into the effect of high school start times.

The study of thousands of Minneapolis high schoolers also found that students who got more sleep behaved better, got slightly better grades and experienced less depression after the district switched from a 7:15 a.m. to an 8:40 a.m. start time in 1997.

Many districts have made high school classes start earlier in recent years for financial reasons and to accommodate after-school activities. But those near-dawn starts have become controversial around the country as research suggest that teens behave better and appear more ready to learn when classes start later. The new research is the most comprehensive yet to look at the issue.

Kyla Wahlstrom of the University of Minnesota, who researched the changes in Minneapolis and the nearby suburb of Edina, said that officials from scores of school districts nationwide have contacted her about whether they should make classes begin later. The Minneapolis data could help them make their decisions, she said.

“Attendance and continuous enrollment have improved significantly in Minneapolis schools since the start times were changed,” she said. “It certainly makes sense that less-sleepy students are more likely to stay in school and will be more ready to learn.”

In the 1995-96 school year, for instance, 83% of ninth-grade Minneapolis students attended classes daily, Wahlstrom found by analyzing attendance records for the entire school district. By 1999-2000, ninth-grade attendance had increased to 87%.

Wahlstrom also pointed to a strong effect seen on students “continuously enrolled” in the Minneapolis school district, defined as being in the same high school two years in a row. Before the change, she said, only 50% of ninth-graders were continuously enrolled, but that increased to 58% after the later starts were implemented. For 10th-graders, she said, the percentage of continuously enrolled students changed from 55% to 67%.

“Something is keeping students from coming and going so much,” said Wahlstrom, who conducted the research for the Minneapolis school district and works at the University of Minnesota Center for Applied Research and Educational Improvement.

A smaller analysis involving 3,000 students also found students tended to behave better in school and experience fewer signs of depression after they were able to sleep later, Wahlstrom said.

Some skeptics of the possible benefits of later start times have said that high school students are likely to just go to sleep later if they know they can sleep later on school mornings.

But Wahlstrom also found that Minneapolis students went to sleep at almost the same time before and after the school start switch--about 10:45 p.m. That means, she said, that they were sleeping about an hour more a night since they were getting up later.

The switch made by Minneapolis in 1997 is being implemented this year in Arlington County, Va., where high school students will report to class at 8:15 a.m., rather than last year’s 7:30 a.m. Officials there proposed the change after being persuaded by sleep research that student’s natural body clocks make them go to sleep later than younger children and wake up later.