National Conference on Adolescent Sleep Health Speaks Up on School Start Times Experts recommend that teenagers start school no earlier than 8:30 am. FCPS almost meets the recommended goal for our high school students and promised to work to improve the 7:30 am start time for middle school students. Let's complete the mission! Our middle school students need your help. Find out more by watching this clip from the National Conference on Adolescent Sleep Health and School Start Times. You'll see some familiar faces!   Sign up for our Email Updates

WHY SCHOOL START TIMES MATTER:

• Adequate sleep improves learning, memory, mood, and performance in school, athletics and other extracurricular activities.
• Brookings Institutution economists report that later school start times improve performance equivalent to two extra months in school and that lifetime earnings increase for students with later start times
• Students are less likely to fall asleep in class or while doing homework when the school day better coincides with a time of day when students are awake and alert and prepared to learn
• Teens in districts with later high school start times have fewer teen car crashes (driving drowsy is like driving drunk)
• Districts with later high school start times have less depression and a decreased need for medications to treat depression (1 in 4 Fairfax teens suffers from symptoms of depression)
• Later high school start times are associated with decreased drop-out rates and improved attendance 
• Later start times results in fewer behavior problems or disciplinary referrals (interruptions to instruction)
• More sleep means better sports performance and fewer sports injuries

There's more! Click here to hear Dr. Sandy Chung and Dr. Michael Martin talk about why doctors support later high school start times!.

Here Are Some of the Many Organizations Which Advocated for Later HS Start Times

Virginia Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics	Medical Society of Northern Virginia	Northern Virginia Clinical Psychologists
Virginia PTA	Fairfax County Council of PTA's	League of Women Voters-Fairfax Area
Fairfax County Federation of Teachers (FCFT)	Coalition of the Silence	Fairfax Zero Tolerance Reform
FCPS School Health Advisory Committee	Northern Virginia Healthy Kids Coalition (9-5-2-1-0 Campaign)	American Foundation for Suicide Prevention
Medical Society of Virginia	American Thoracic Society	Real Food For Kids
American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP)	Greater Washington Society for Clinical Social Work	Fairfax County School Board
Society of Pediatric Nurses

 

Updated May 2018