Weekly late starts at Costa would benefit students as well as teachers

By Madi Taylor
Staff Writer

With the immense pressure placed on high schoolers due to their limited time in the day to balance extracurriculars and school, many students find it extremely difficult to get the recommended amount of sleep. A weekly late start schedule at Mira Costa would help students cope with their everyday stresses and lessen their sleep deprivation.

According to the National Sleep Foundation, teenagers need around eight hours of sleep per night to function properly, but only 15% of teenagers polled actually meet this requirement.

At Manhattan Beach Middle School, a new late start policy was established in the 2012-13 school year, in order to give teachers more time to hold department meetings Currently, there is a weekly 9 a.m. late start, as opposed to the previous monthly late start. According to MBMS teachers, they are able to utilize this hour efficiently.

Students who are unable to adapt their rides to the new schedule are unable to benefit from the extra hour of sleep. However, the MBMS administration recognized this dilemma and instituted two new programs for students who arrive early. The Study Hut, a local tutoring service, and the Manhattan Beach Parks and Recreation’s Teen Center established organized morning activities for the students who come to school between 8 and 9 a.m. Students are able to take advantage of these resources and be productive during this extra hour.

The students who are able to get later rides do not necessarily take advantage of the allotted hour. Teachers at MBMS find that students lack focus on Wednesday mornings compared to other days of the week. Teachers even observe that most students come to school with Coffee Bean or Jamba Juice, clearly not taking advantage of the extra hour of sleep. Students should take advantage of this extra hour as extra sleep or homework time.

Although the middle school may not be fully benefitting from this policy, teachers from both schools agree that more mature high school students would take advantage of this hour, knowing this could enhance their performance in the classroom.

This policy has yet to be established in a high school setting in the Manhattan Beach Unified School District, but the idea was brought to the administration’s attention upon Dr. Ben Dale’s arrival as principal. In 2011, the administration fully backed the policy, but teachers voted not to implement it.
Implementation of the weekly 9 a.m. late start program at Mira Costa would relieve some students’ stress. Students claim that they are unable to perform at their best on such little sleep. With weekly 9 a.m. late starts, students would be able to maintain a healthier sleep pattern or at least catch up on lost sleep one morning a week.

To implement this policy, teachers would have to vote to pass it, which was not successful in the past. Previously, teachers were opposed to the change because they felt they were not adequately informed about the vote. Teachers should support this schedule change because the extra hour would also benefit teachers, who could use the allotted time to collaborate with their colleagues and partake in staff development session regarding new programs such as the upcoming change to the Common Core system.

The implementation of the late start program would be more effective at Costa because students would benefit from the additional sleep, and teachers would be able to engage in useful collaboration within their departments.