What to Expect From Students After the Start of Daylight Saving Time
For children in the 48 states that observe daylight saving time, the second Sunday in March may feel like cause to celebrate. Bumping the clocks up an hour provides an immediate extra hour of daylight and kicks off the start of warmer weather and increasingly longer days.
But health experts warn that, especially in the short term, the sudden leap forward by an hour can disrupt students’ sleep patterns, many of which are already compromised …
… “We know adolescents are sleep-deprived and that their body rhythms already struggle to match the natural circadian rhythms,” said Syracuse University School of Education Professor George Theoharis. “If we are serious about addressing that, changing high school start times would be an important step … But in most places we have stuck with the outdated idea that high school starts early.”
Theoharis notes that teens aren’t the only students likely to struggle with getting enough sleep.
Sleep deprivation, he said, “is an ongoing challenge and struggle, particularly with families that are either in turmoil or families that are really facing significant economic challenges that disrupt their routines and lives” …