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Melissa Harris-Perry: Welcome to The Takeaway. I'm Melissa Harris-Perry. Thanks for being with us.

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Melissa Harris-Perry: It's time for a second period in our back-to-school series, School Principals. Today, we're talking about school start times. They vary across the country, but in most places, high school classes begin quite early in the morning, sometimes as much as an hour to 90 minutes earlier than grade schools. Of course, if you've ever lived with kids or remember being one yourself, these start times can feel a little backward. After all, a kindergartner will launch out of bed full of energy before the sun rises, but teens, that's another story. One of our producers even confessed to using a spray bottle of water to help wake her sleepy teen in the morning.

According to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, adolescence need between 8 and 10 hours of sleep every night, but few teens get enough rest. One possible solution might be to have the school day start a little later, which is exactly what is happening in California this school year. California has become the first state to prohibit high schools from sounding those school bells one minute prior to 8:30 AM and middle schools no earlier than 8:00 AM.

To understand the significance of this legislation, we spoke with Lisa L. Lewis, author of The Sleep-Deprived Teen: Why Our Teenagers are So Tired, And How Parents and Schools Can Help Them Thrive. Her work helped inspire the California law that's being instituted this year.

Lisa L. Lewis: None of us do anything any better when we are sleep-deprived. We manage to function despite being sleep-deprived, but we are certainly not any better for it. When it comes to our teens, it has widespread implications for their health and wellbeing. It affects their performance in school, it has implications for drowsy driving crashes, for impulsive behavior, even for mental health. Really, pretty much every single measure you can think of, teens are going to do more poorly or have more difficulty just getting through the day, because when they're sleep-deprived, it just makes everything that much more difficult.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Why not just encourage families to send their kids to bed a little earlier?

Lisa L. Lewis: At puberty, they shift to a later sleep schedule. Basically, it's a circadian rhythm shift that happens, where they're no longer feeling sleepy as early in the evenings as they used to. That's because melatonin, which is the hormone that primes us to start feeling sleepy, begins to be released on a later schedule. It's not released until later at night, it doesn't subside until later in the morning, so our teens really aren't feeling sleepy till about eleven o'clock at night. If you have a kid and you watch them as they get older, you will see this in your household, a teen is not bounding out of bed at 6:30 in the morning the way a five-year-old is.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Oh, don't I know it, yes.

Lisa L. Lewis: Yes. Then if they're not feeling sleepy till about eleven o'clock at night, and then, of course, many of them are going to bed later than that, but you just do the math for them to be able to get those 8 to 10 hours, if school is starting too early, it makes it practically impossible for them to do that.

Melissa Harris-Perry: I'm wondering about other aspects of sleep hygiene.

Lisa L. Lewis: There are some things to keep in mind as parents when it comes to tech use at night. For example, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that tech devices be shut off at least an hour before bedtime. That would be one of those best practices to implement in the household. There can be caveats, though, because even though our kids don't have online schooling anymore, oftentimes they still do need to use their computers to do their homework, to turn in their assignments.

What I found, which I didn't realize until somebody pointed out, when teachers set those turn-in due dates for assignments, oftentimes the default time that gets assigned is 11:59 PM. Of course, then that tacitly encourages them to be online a little bit later. Absolutely, tech use, that would be best practice. Turn it off an hour before bedtime. Ideally, no devices in the bedrooms at night. If you can get everyone in the household to have a central charging station, perhaps in the kitchen, but that means everybody. They've got to see us walking the talk too and having our devices not in our bedrooms, and at a minimum, if they are in the bedrooms, turning off all notifications.

They've done studies showing-- how many people when they wake up in the middle of the night immediately get back on their phones and start checking things? Of course, that is really not helping anybody when it comes to getting a good night's sleep.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Now, I want to talk a little bit about the school's piece. I'm wondering about unintended consequences and if it actually ends up leading to teens being able to have the kind of rest they clearly need.

Lisa L. Lewis: It can be complicated when you talk about shifting schedules. I think it's really important to keep in mind why we're doing this. You look at the mental health issues that our teen are having, the fact that sleep deprivation exacerbates those issues. There is a very compelling reason why this is being done. Now, that being said, it is important to address all these other moving pieces.

With the California law, it was actually signed into law in the fall of 2019 with a three-year implementation window so that districts would have time and communities would have time to look at what are some of the specific questions and issues that are going to come up that we should address ahead of time, because absolutely, you can't just flip a switch and expect everybody to do that.

Again, this is not new or experimental, this has been done literally for decades. The first school to change its start times based on the science was back in 1996 in Minnesota, Edina, Minnesota, specifically. Since then, literally hundreds of districts, probably more than that have changed their start times. The issue is it's been done on a patchwork basis. Also, there is not a central database tracking this. It isn't as if I can give you the exact number, but what we do know from decades of research is that when schools start later, teens get more sleep. This has been shown time and time again.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Lisa L. Lewis is author of The Sleep Deprived Teen. Thank you for joining us today.

Lisa L. Lewis: Thank you so much.

Melissa Harris-Perry: It all seems straightforward, right? Just push back school start times. When Seattle did it in 2016, high schoolers clocked an average of an extra half hour of shuteye, and teens in the Cherry Creek Colorado School District got even more than that when the schools changed start times in 2017, but it might not be as simple as it seems.

Dr. Marian Kim-Phelps: Yes, I think the intention behind the bill was the good one, I just think that they didn't think about the things that were unintended consequences.

Melissa Harris-Perry: We'll talk about that right after this quick break. Welcome back to The Takeaway. I'm Melissa Harris-Perry. We've been talking about the new mandate in California requiring middle and high schools to begin later. Since 2014, the American Academy of Pediatrics has recommended an 8:30 or later start time, citing the impact of chronic sleep loss not just on school performance, but on mental health and even car accidents due to drowsy driving. Shifting school start times is a complicated logistical matter. I sat down with Dr. Marian Kim-Phelps, superintendent of California's Poway Unified School District, to find out what it's been like to implement this policy.

Dr. Marian Kim-Phelps: I think this legislation has had so many unintended consequences. Some of the things that we've had to do is really, since it's an unfunded mandate, we've had to add an additional $1.5 million annually to our budget to help fund this unfunded mandate. We've had to add and purchase six to eight more buses, we've had to adjust our student breakfast and lunch times, we've had to add more online classes because students are having difficulty trying to fit all their classes in, especially if they're on the trimester or semester system. Those are just some of the things that the district has had to do, but it's had a lot of impact in other areas that affect students and families and facilities.

Melissa Harris-Perry: You say unfunded mandate and you're talking about the need for these additional resources. I can imagine for those of us who don't run the complex system that is a school district, the thought might be, "Wait a minute, why would it cost any money or additional resources to have schools start at one time versus another?"

Dr. Marian Kim-Phelps: Yes, I think the intention behind the bill was a good one, I just think that they didn't think about the things that, again, were unintended consequences. For example, now that school gets out later, that means that all the other programs and clubs that students participate in have to start later. When you have athletics and different competitions, they still start similarly at the same time, so a lot of kids have to miss their fourth period or the last fourth or fifth period. That impacts student learning time.

The buses then also can't be providing transportation for these students who go to those programs. We've had to purchase our [unintelligible 00:10:03] charter buses to take students there because our bus drivers and our buses are taking our regular Gen Ed students and our ASPIRE students with special needs back from school to home.

Food and nutrition has been impacted because of the transportation situation. Many times, students who normally would get breakfast in the morning can't. Because school starts later, a lot of parents have to drop their students off at school earlier, where there may not be supervision. For example, my own daughter, we have to drop her off at Starbucks in the morning before school and then she has to walk to school.

There are a lot of things like that that I think people don't realize the impact of that. When students can't take all their classes because they're missing too many to get to competitions or the programs that actually connect them to schools, like athletics and band and theater, we have to offer online courses so that kids can find ways to get their classwork in. The whole point of this bill or legislation was to allow them to sleep in, but what we're finding is that more and more kids are having to stay up late and still get up early to do their homework or fit in their online classes.

Melissa Harris-Perry: We've talked a lot about things happening in school buildings. I'm also wondering about what later dismissal might mean for students who work jobs after school or who might be needed to help to supervise younger siblings. Have you heard anything from families or students about that?

Dr. Marian Kim-Phelps: Our school district relies a lot on our high school students staffing our extended day school program, and because they get out of school later, it literally took their shifts from being a four-hour shift, like they used to be able to work like two to six o'clock at night, and now they can only work from 4:00 to 6:00 if they can get there by then.

It's really had a dramatic impact on our ability to hire students to run these programs. We've been short with employees, we've had to cut the number of families and students that we're able to accept in those after-school programs because of that, but more importantly, students are having a hard time getting employment because of the limited amount of time they have available after school to work and also to have time to do their homework and everything.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Have you heard from any parents or students who really love this change? I presume, as in all things, there are different sides and different experiences with a policy. Is anybody saying, "Oh, thank goodness, this is just what I needed?"

Dr. Marian Kim-Phelps: There are a few students that I've heard are relieved, that they get to sleep in more, but those are typically the students who come to school and then go home right afterwards and they are not involved in a lot of extracurricular activities, but for the students who are involved in extracurricular activities, the activities that actually connect them to the school, make them feel a part of the high school experience have reported a lot of negative feelings towards it.

Unfortunately, I'm not in a position where people often call with compliments. Parents call and are complaining about having issues of where do they drop off their kids because they have to go to work or that their child no longer can help the family with finances and work after school. There are a lot of issues. We also have issues because the younger students, elementary students, as a result of the older ones having to start later, transportation providing for the younger ones, that means they start earlier. When they start earlier, they get out earlier, and then they don't have their older siblings to watch them at home either. It's had a huge impact on families as well.

Melissa Harris-Perry: There are some other states, New York and New Jersey among them, who are considering similar legislation. What would be your advice or statement to policymakers as they're considering this change?

Dr. Marian Kim-Phelps: They really need to have district leaders and parents on both sides at the table to provide this input. There needs to be funding that follows this because it's had a huge impact in a lot of different areas, not just with transportation, but like I said, with online classes, or with food and nutrition, and staffing for after-school care, and finding that staffing. It's had a lot of impact. Just making sure you have the right people at the table to provide that input, to do some problem-solving together.

Like I said, I think it's a well-intended legislation, but it has a lot of unintended negative consequences to school districts. We're all just trying to figure it all out right now. Parents and districts are trying to do the best they can to accommodate it.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Thank you so much to Dr. Marian Kim-Phelps, superintendent of the Poway Unified School District. Superintendent Kim-Phelps, thank you for your time today.

Dr. Marian Kim-Phelps: Thank you for having me.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Now, we want to hear from you on this topic. Should more schools start later? Call us at 877-869-8253. That's 877-8- MY-TAKE, and let us know what you think.

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