“Just five more minutes” is the audible snooze button prompt for kids still being gingerly woken up by their parents across the nation. The desire to just have a little bit more time to sleep each morning isn’t something unique to those under the age of 18, but maybe it should be. According to The Washington Post, allowing adolescents to sleep in may just be one of the smartest economic moves possible.
A new study from the Rand Corporation took a look at the effect a later start time would have on public schools across the nation and the results were promising. In Rand’s plan, the earliest start time for classes would be 8:30 a.m. and the listed economic gains also take into account the spending needed to support the change in timing. (Length of sleep is important, but so is the quality of sleep—be sure to follow these 13 tips to get the most out of your time in slumber land.)
The costs incurred range from what it would cost to change up the now-set-in-stone school bus schedules ($150 per year, per student) as well as an estimated $110,000 needed for each school to install adaptive infrastructure in order to operate later in the day.
The benefits are pretty straightforward and logical; students who are more well-rested are more alert and more likely to perform well in school and far less likely to be involved in fatigue-induced car accidents on the way to school.
Currently, just 18 percent of schools across the U.S. have classes starting at 8:30 a.m. or later, and the current national average sits at 8:03 a.m., according to Center for Disease Control.
But wouldn’t the kids just stay up later, chatting up their friends on AOL Instant Messenger? Probably not, because their brains are actually wired for a later daily start time than adults.
So, if you want your kid to do better in school, then petition your school for a later daily start date. Getting your bleary-eyed kid back on the school sleeping schedule is hard as it is; you might as well have the school system on your side.
[Source: The Washington Post]
from Reader's Digest http://ift.tt/2w7GAgJ
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