Could Early Mornings Essentially Kill You?

Ravneet Dhoophur
Mrs. Lewis
Wednesday, October 22nd, 2014

Introduction & Hypothesis:
Every day you sit down at the dinner table and your parents give you the same lecture, “hope you’re doing the right thing in school, getting good grades are the most important thing right now, don’t forget to take part in extracurricular activities, etc.” Parents and teachers expect children to get the good grades, have a part time job, play sports in and out of school and on top of all that, maintain a social life while getting up at 6am every morning. Being able to fulfill that would not seem as difficult if school did not start so early. If school did not start so early, would being a well-rounded student be less undemanding? If school started later would it be beneficial for students for attaining higher quality grades? Having school start early, is it essentially hurting children rather than helping them? What is the reason for school having to start so early? Is the school board more concerned in saving money or saving children’s future? I wanted to figure out the genuine answers for myself and assimilate why changing school times is a difficult arrangement for the school board. To receive these answers I conducted a survey on Google Docs where students that attend Orchard Park, in grades 9-13 completed to give me their anonymous answers. For my secondary sources I ******LIST SECONDARY SOURCES***********. I personally believe that it having school begin later during the day would benefit students such as having better grades, a healthier mind and body and furthermore making the student well rounded.
Background Information: Waking up every morning at 6:40am for the past four years, I myself happen to know quite a bit about bell times and the attendance policy. I have been going to Orchard Park for the past four years and I haven’t had that vast a problem with the attendance issue because my parents would always make sure I arrived to school on time. In my first year, school used to begin at 8:30am and then it changed to starting at 8am the next year. In grade 10, no one questioned the school so my classmates and I just went along with it because what else was there to do? Complain about it, get over the situation and then deal with it because were just kids in grade 10. We had only been at the school for a solid year; there wasn’t much our voice could do. Changing the bed time always seemed like a good idea but when it came time to going to bed before 10pm, one would think to themself “it’s only half an hour, I’ll be fine” and shrugged the thought off. Then the next morning would come and even if someone had attached chains to your body and a truck tried pulling you out of bed, it still seemed impossible. Realistically it was only a half an hour difference, yet it felt like you were being forced to wake up at 5am. During the ride to school, I was falling asleep and getting through first period felt like a mission. It had felt like I was using all of my energy in staying awake rather than learning whatever it was my teacher was teaching. After a while, you as a student learn to change your habits. I had to choose between my extracurricular activities, whether I wanted to quit the sports teams I was a part of or the numerous clubs I was involved in. In the end I chose sports, which was a difficult decision to make but I knew early on that with sports, clubs, my part-time job and also maintaining my friends on top of receiving good grades would be far too difficult. I had to make the mature decision because completing all that I wanted to do was not a problem, it was the fact that I knew the next morning I would have to wake up at 6:30am. I always questioned that if school began at a later time, I would be able to complete all that was important to me and still uphold a decent average.
Secondary Sources: Findings:
To begin conducting my secondary research I thought to