The morning: a struggle the human race has faced for eons.

Bob Jones does indeed have a later bell than other schools, yet it still seems to early for someone to be able to gain enough sleep to be healthy. According to student Julia Pimmel, “Even though the high school starts later than the middle school, it is basically the same since the high school students need much more sleep.” Why not just go to sleep earlier? asks the audience member in the back. Well, students are meant to be kids, meaning they need to live and have fun outside school. If they spend all of their time sleeping or studying, and then being too tired to do any else, they wouldn’t have any knowledge of the real world that isn’t from school.

Student and avid sleeper Sija Headrick said, “It sucks that it starts so early. It would suck less if I got to sleep more.” Even students who have extremely large personalities are drained of energy. School starting at 8:15 a.m. is far too early, especially since students are such night owls. They like to stay up late since their brains have been biologically proven to be more awake at night. If it has been proven by professionals, then why don’t education leaders listen?

The Madison County Superintendent has thought about pushing start times by forty-five minutes, and though that may not seem like very long, most schools with the typical seven to eight periods hold an entire class in that time.  The ending times of the day would not be changed along with the later start time, which would be a double whammy of good fortune for all those sleep-deprived, overworked kids. Few people would object.

Sleep is one of the most important pieces of our daily lives, yet schools seem to have forgotten this. High school is supposed to be our time to be kids without the stress to learn our entire lives when they have just barely begun, but stress finds a way, and is only worsened by the mental fatigue of sleep deprivation. Rates of depression, anxiety, and other mental disorders has been on the rise.  One in five adults have depression today, and that can start with the teenage years. The daily stress of life only worsens the effects of such problems. Sleep is needed by everyone, everywhere.

School is a place of learning. If learning can only be successful when someone can pay attention, why are students punished for problems school creates? All of this can simply be fixed by one small idea: let people sleep just for a fraction more before they have to calculate fractions.