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When the first school bell rings, kids are wide awake.

Last September, Dobbs Ferry School District joined a small but growing cluster of schools around the US that have started pushing back their middle and high school start times in an effort to combat student grogginess.

Bolstered by a mountain of sleep science research that says pre-teens and teenagers are some of the most sleep-deprived people and would actually do better in school with more rest, these forward-thinking schools are finally cutting worn-out students a break.

They're letting kids sleep in.

What happens when you start later?

Dobbs Ferry Superintendent Dr. Lisa Brady tells Business Insider that prior to the 2015-2016 school year, middle schoolers started at 8:15 a.m. and high schoolers at 7:30 a.m. Under the new policy, each school now starts and ends 45 minutes later. Both schools have experienced tremendous benefits, Brady says.


Following a survey issued at the end of the last school year, Brady says "it was clear from both the parents and the kids, overwhelmingly, that the mornings were just less stressful."


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Kira Hoffman, an eighth-grader at Jane Addams Middle School, tells KUOW that she "no longer feels super-rushed or worried about how much I've slept, or when I'm going to get to school, or if I'm going to be late."

In Pennsylvania, a new hope

The trend has been building steam for the past few years. At the advocacy group Start School Later, employees have been compiling an ongoing list of US schools and districts that have made the move to push back the first bell. So far, schools in 44 states have jumped onboard.


One of those is Solebury School, in New Hope, Pennsylvania, where Director of Studies Rick Tony has pushed for a robust set of changes to the typical school schedule.

Beginning this academic year, kids at Solebury, a private boarding and day school, don't start until 8:30 a.m. On Wednesdays, it's 9:00 a.m. That's a full hour later than in years past, when the first bell sounded promptly at 8.

At the same time, the school also moved from six 50-minute classes to four 80-minute classes. With fewer teachers to assign homework, Tony says, kids can still enjoy their nights even if they get home slightly later.


Tony is also a math teacher, and he says his students already produce better work on a more consistent basis, even though the schedule is just a month old. Around the campus, kids seem more relaxed now that they're not juggling as much work as early in the day.

"The freneticism is definitely reduced this year," he says, adding that in a few months he plans to follow up with teachers to get harder data about student achievement.

The downsides of delaying start times


Brady says some parents at Dobbs Ferry have found it harder to complete the necessary morning rituals and still get to work on time. Meanwhile, Tony says the issue at Solebury is finding enough buses for kids. In both cases, the officials say parents have the option to drop their kids off at school before the first bell so they can eat breakfast, charge their devices, or just hang out.

Brady has also found challenges with athletics and after-school clubs. In years prior, teams had no trouble getting to away games. Now they have less time to get there, and they have to deal with worse traffic.

"The kids feel really rushed," she says.


Once they finally get home, many say they have less time for all the homework they've been assigned. Brady says the school is brainstorming changes to the school day similar to those made at Solebury.

It takes a village

In districts where schools have yet to listen to the sleep science research, parents have begun to speak up.


When asked why more schools have yet to take her district's lead, Brady speculated it has something to do with generational pride. Even if the science is rock-solid, many administrators and parents simply don't pity the sleepy teen. Waking up is hard, but it's a part of life.
