BALTIMORE — You snooze, you lose—a phrase that does not apply to teenagers. It's essentially settled science that middle and high school students need between 8 to 10 hours of sleep during these crucial developmental years, but they rarely get it. Study after study has shown that sleep deprivation can lead to poor academic performance, a host of negative physical and mental health impacts, increased risk of driving accidents—the list goes on.
Daisy Tabachnik has lived it.
“I was tested for everything imaginable. They tested me for like AIDs, just anything they could think of; it was all negative,” she recalled to WMAR-2 News’ Elizabeth Worthington.
She began her high school career the same year that Baltimore City Public Schools shifted start times for most schools. Daisy had to be at Baltimore City College at 7:30 a.m.
“By 7:30, like more than half the class was absent every single day," she said. "I mean, there were some people in my first period class who I didn't even know were in there, because I never saw them.”
Tabachnik missed school often too. By her junior year, she would be classified by the state's standards as "chronically absent," which applies to students who miss at least 10% of school days. But her mom had been watching her go from a healthy kid, to chronically ill.
This past January, she transferred to a school outside the district that starts an hour later. The nagging cough she had since August magically disappeared.
“I mean, I haven't gotten sick once since I transferred,” she told WMAR-2 News. “It's improved my mood. I've been a lot more motivated to go to school.”
After doing her own research, she discovered she wasn't alone.
Dr. Amy Wolfson, a psychology professor at Loyola University who has studied adolescent sleep for more than 30 years, has seen countless Tabachnik's in her career. It’s why she advocates for later school start times—especially in Baltimore City, which has the highest chronic absenteeism rate in the state, at 48.7%.
WMAR-2 News reported earlier this month on a bill being considered by the Baltimore City Council, that would require the city public school system to conduct a study identifying "root causes" for why so many students are missing dozens of school days a year. Lawmakers, sleep researchers, and even students are now saying - one of the reasons is right in front of you.
She says teenagers' biological clocks call for them to go to bed later and wake up later. It’s part of a natural shift in their circadian rhythm, experienced right around when adolescents hit puberty, called a “sleep phase delay.”
“Getting insufficient or erratic or misaligned sleep, in other words, having to go to school when your body’s telling you - you should still be sleeping, all of those lead to problems for adolescents,” Dr. Wolfson said. “[It’s] going to make it more likely they’re going to get sick, or have immune system issues. There’s risk of weight gain. Of course we have many adolescents behind the wheel driving themselves to school, or driving siblings and friends elsewhere. In fact, teenagers have the highest risk for sleepy driver or fall-asleep-at-the-wheel motor vehicle accidents. Teenagers are much more likely than other age groups to have accidents at work, say if they work in a fast food restaurant, and then all of the academic concerns,” she said.
“In my mind, I can't imagine that you wouldn't make this change,” Heather Moore, the head of the Baltimore City chapter of Start School Later, a national grassroots organization that was started in Anne Arundel County, said.
Moore, Dr. Wolfson, and Tabachnik all testified in Annapolis this legislative session in favor of a bill that would require public middle and high schools in Maryland to push back start times to at least 8 a.m. for middle schools and 8:30 a.m. for high schools. When this change has been suggested in the past, school leaders have argued it would be too expensive and difficult of a change.
“They start with 'no,' rather than, 'let's see what we can do,’” Moore said. “It's, 'no, it's too hard.' And I don't discount that it would be hard or different. I do discount that it would be impossible.”
“You feel like everything's not being done in the interest of the students but doing it in the interest of how much it's gonna cost the school district, or how it's gonna affect the admin,” Tabachnik told WMAR-2 News.
“In Seattle, the entire state of California, many New England school districts, they've had great success. Are there bumps and barriers that school districts will complain about? Yes. But no one's going back. No one's going back,” Dr. Wolfson said.
In Focus look at Harford County Public School start times
We also have our own success story right here in Maryalnd. Anne Arundel County shifted school start times to later in the morning two years ago. Middle school students begin at 9:15 a.m., and high school students start at 8:30 a.m.
Bob Mosier, a spokesperson for Anne Arundel County Public School System told WMAR-2 News:
"Our Board of Education's move to change school start and dismissal times was based on the scientific research regarding the benefits such a shift would have for all students. We are in our second year with the new schedule and while it is impossible to pinpoint the school hours change as the only factor in some of the many improved student outcomes we have seen, we believe it has created a better environment for students and staff across our school district."
The bill to make it mandatory statewide has a long and bipartisan list of sponsors, but it hasn’t made it out of the Ways and Means committee yet. At this point in the legislative session, that means it’s likely dead. But the debate within individual school districts is still alive and well.
“I think it’s a little bit of fear of change," Moore said. "I think it’s also fear of innovation."
