While Park considers alternative school start times, it’s important to consider the significant impact sleep has on teenagers. Middle school and high school students should have later start times due to health concerns related to a lack of sleep.

According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), 13-18 year olds need eight to 10 hours of sleep a night. Most teenagers go to bed at 11 p.m., wake up at 7:30 a.m. and can get to school on time. This changes if students take a zero hour class, ride the bus, take awhile to get ready, live outside of St. Louis Park or if the roads are bad.

Teens usually won’t feel tired until 11 p.m., according to Time magazine, so most students should sleep until at least 7:30 a.m. This is impossible for middle schoolers, whose school starts at 7:33 a.m., and difficult for a number of high schoolers. This terrible oversight by the St. Louis Park school district has had adverse effects on sixth through 12th graders. Both of the proposed alternate start times are great options for improving this problem — each has the middle and high school starting at 8:25 a.m. or later. Although changing start times won’t fix every teen’s sleep schedule, it will give students the time to get a healthy amount of sleep.

Too little sleep has been linked with drinking alcohol, drug abuse, depression, car accidents, bad grades, increased risk of illness, and more, according to the CDC and Time magazine. According to a study conducted by the National Institutes of Health, lack of sleep may even increase risk of Alzheimer’s.

Whole communities need to commit to this change, as later school times can affect sports, clubs, childcare and more. Pushing back school start times won’t automatically increase the amount of sleep every student is getting each night, but schools have a responsibility to give teenagers the opportunity to get a healthy amount of sleep.