Here are some informational resources if you are interested in start times in Guilford.
- Here are the slides that Craig and I presented to the town several years ago.: Guilford Meeting 12_2015
- “School Start Times for Adolescents”, by the Adolescent Sleep Working Group and Committee on Adolescence, and Council School Health on school start times has a great summary of the evidence, as well as their call for later school start times. Here’s another article from the same group: “Insufficient Sleep in Adolescents and Young Adults: An Update on Causes and Consequences” by Judith Owens.
- Here’s another very detailed work commissioned by the Fairfax School District: Change School Start Time Report Fairfax.
- Here’s the policy statement from the CDC on school start times.
- Here’s the Start School Later “Myths and Misconceptions” page, which I borrowed liberally from.
- Here’s a great terrific toolkit from the Race to Nowhere team, it provides a playbook for students, parents, administrators and community leaders (like yourselves) on how to change start times.
- The paper by Vorona et al looking at the relationship between school start times and car accidents
- The CDC paper showing that 90% of teens are sleep deprived by CE Basch from 2014
- The 2012 Schools and Staffing Survey data showing that Guilford starts earlier than 90% of schools in the US
- Here is an article linking to data showing that later school start times do not result in teens staying up later.
I hope you have walked out of this talk with an urge to deal with school start times in our community. Recently, we got the news that Seattle is moving school start times to 8:45— they are the largest school district in the US to do so. We’re working on this issue in Guilford; people are working in Westport, the greater Hartford area, and Greenwich as well. Every child deserves an adequate amount of sleep at night.