Later school starting time has been talked about for a long time. California and Florida high schools have changed time to start later, and some haven’t. For instance, a story on King 5 in April about a Tacoma School District changing start times to save $1 million on transportation. Arlington High School starts at 8:00 AM every morning. 

When interviewing senior, Nick Coghill, he said “Teenage students tend to stay up later due to busy evenings whether it’s sports or working.”

 He said with having a job and playing sports, it is hard to get enough sleep, which makes morning harder for him. Coghill also said “Yes, businesses only stay open so late, maybe more unemployment, and kids who need jobs will unfortunately not be able to work as much.”

A similar response came from freshman Elias Hernandez. He said, “focusing the next day at school can be hard and it carries on the rest of the week because I just go home and sleep.” 

Just like Coghill, Hernandez said he also thinks that working after school will be affected because there will be less hours to work.

Lastly, Junior Travant Schulz, said “students will abuse late starting time by staying up later because they know they will have that hour of sleep back.” 

This shows that changing the time will just lessen time for activities after school, and not actually getting more hours of sleep. Schulz said, “I wake up more sore than usual, and can’t focus at school as easily.”