Let’s face it, a half-hour later start won’t really change students’ sleeping behavior 

 A few weeks ago, the administration of Seneca Valley announced a new start time for the 2018-2019 school year. They announced that students on the secondary campus will start their school day at 8:09 AM instead of 7:34. Some students were excited about the change, some were confused, and seniors expressed their jealousy for the students as we had to wake up before six in the morning ever since our first day in 7^th grade. They also suffered the consequences of waking up that early in the morning such as drowsiness and irritation.  

However, after taking a more detailed look at the start time, I realized that the start time is just a half-hour later start which basically means that students would get an extra thirty minutes of sleep. An extra thirty minutes of sleep is not that much when one says that teenagers need at least 7-8 hours of sleep a day. However, I still feel tired whenever I get over 8-9 hours of sleep, so I would still be tired even if I just got an extra half-hour of sleep. 

Also, this school start change might also tell students that they can stay up later since they will be going to school later in the day. This has been proven time and time again whenever there is a two-hour delay, where I would hear people constantly talking about how they stayed up until two in the morning playing Fortnite or whatever they play until the wee hours in the morning. So, despite having an opportunity to sleep an extra thirty minutes the students will ignore it and stay up later using the excuse of “We start school later anyway.”

The late start seems like a good idea while on paper, however, it might be just as effective as using a baseball bat in a tennis match if one were to look closer into it. As a fellow student who fully supports a later start to the school year to help improve performance in school, I feel that only an extra half-hour of sleep is quite ineffective when it comes to helping students concentrate better. If the school board decided to start school an hour later, it might be a little more effective in helping student concentration. The schools should start an hour earlier as getting an extra hour of sleep has some positive effects on the students instead of an extra half -hour of sleep.