The Boston public schools have decided to let students from 10 high schools sleep a little later Monday through Friday, according to All About BPS, a district-sponsored blog written by the schools’ chief communications officer.
Educators, policymakers, and researchers should keep a close eye on these experiments in letting high school kids sleep a little longer, especially if they result in higher levels of achievement. There is already some research available on the effect of school start times on student performance.
Undoubtedly, I would have been a strong advocate for the validity of this research when I was in high school. An extra 20 or 30 minutes of sleep in the morning was something worth fighting for back then.