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High Schools Start Too Early
in Montgomery County, MD
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*Articles*
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  • Rise and shine? Students go off to school too tired to learn  Washington Times article by Kathleen Maloney-Dunn, September 25, 2005
  • Sleep Is One Thing Missing in Busy Teenage Lives  New York Times article by  Denise Grady, November 5, 2002
  • Walter Johnson High School PTA Studies School Start Time Problem .  On average, WJ students get less than seven hours of sleep per night.  Over 50% of the students surveyed would like to have school start at least an hour later in the morning  (8:25 am rather than 7:25 am)  Most school buses arrive at Walter Johnson at 7:00 am in order for drivers to have ample time to make the middle school transportation runs.
  • School for teens should begin at noon, study says : Different body clocks -- September 26, 2002, article in the National Post (Canada)
  • “ Sleepwalking through high school : Parents push for later start for teens” September 19, 2002, Montgomery County Sentinel article about WAKE UP. 
  • Model article for school newsletters
  • Sleep Deprivation Is Widespread at Area High Schools -- first in a 2001-2 series of newsletter articles on teen sleep deprivation in Montgomery County
  • Montgomery County Starts High School Earlier than Most Other Districts and Schools -- second in the series. 
  • Flexible Schedule Model for MCPS High Schools -- third in the series
  • Flexible schedule pilot at BCC HS
  • Arlington County New Start Times   -- Multiple pages on changes made by Arlington County.  New times are 8:15 for high schools, 7:50 for middle schools, and between 8:00 and 9:00 for elementary schools. Click here to read the proposal including the rationale for change.
  • Later School Start Benefits Teens, Study Concludes -- Washington Post article August 29, 2001, on a Minnesota study showing that high school students are less likely to miss classes or stop coming to school regularly if they can sleep later on school mornings. They also got more sleep, got slightly better grades, and experienced less depression after the school district switched from a 7:15 a.m. start time to 8:40 in 1997.
  • Sleep Deprivation is Widespread at Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School A survey returned by half the Bethesda-Chevy Chase student body provides shocking information about sleep deprivation among high school students in Montgomery County.  On average, students surveyed on March 16, 2001 indicated that they got six-and-a-half hours of sleep the previous night.  By comparison, the National Sleep Foundation reports and adopts the recommendation of leading sleep researchers that teenagers need 9 to 9 ¼ hours of sleep per night. These  findings indicate that a substantial sleep deficit exists.  Inadequate sleep and early waking times (due to early school starting times) can lead to poor school performance, traffic accidents among student drivers, drowsiness or actual in-class dozing, behavioral problems, and other negative effects.
  • Epidemic of Daytime Sleepiness Linked to Increased Feelings of Anger, Stress, and Pessimism -- National Sleep Foundation Article
  • The road to danger: the comparative risks of driving   -- abstract of a Stanford Medical School study showing that the potential risks of driving while sleepy are at least as dangerous as the risks of driving illegally under the influence of alcohol.
  • Waking up to Danger of Sleep Deprivation   One of our members, who is Chief of Behavioral & Integrative Neuroscience Research Branch and the Coordinator for Sleep Research at NIMH, said about this article "There are a lot of articles on sleep around, but I found this one to be particularly comprehensive and written in general terms so that it captures a huge segment of where the research is at and what it tells us."

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    page last updated 11-6-05