Sleep science and policy: a focus on school start times

Abstract

Across the nation, school districts, communities, and policy makers are having impassioned conversations about the potential, far-reaching impacts of changing school start times on students, schools, and communities. On the one hand, scientific evidence over the past 25 years provides strong data to suggest that early school start times for high school students are in direct conflict with adolescents' internal biological clocks. In fact, only 1 in 5 middle and high schools in the United States starts the day at 8:30 AM or later, as recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the AmericanMedical Association. This conflict between a biological tendency to stay up late and the constraints of early school start times has resulted in widespread insufficient sleep duration among teens in the United States and around the globe. Furthermore, considerable research demonstrates that “sleepy teens” are at increased risk for a host of negative academic, social, and health outcomes. Nevertheless, arguments concerning the “costs” (eg, bussing, impacts on afterschool sports or extracurricular activities, childcare concerns for younger children) associated with changing school start times often result in the failure for the policy change tomove forward. Sleep Health is devoting a special issue focused on a range of topics related to the school start time policy. This special issue aims to include broad transdisciplinary and international perspectives, with topics ranging from the significance of the issue (in terms of impacts on child and adolescent health, performance, and functioning) to implementation issues. Possible topics for papers include, but are not limited to, the following: