With the Westford School Committee’s unanimous decision to push WA’s start time to 8:00 a.m., student schedules will face an inevitable change beginning in the 2025-2026 school year. Although the shift will result in temporary difficulties regarding after-school routines, a later start time is necessary to improve student wellness. Instead of viewing the change as a nuisance, students should use the schedule shift as an opportunity to be more productive and prioritize sleep.
From a logistical standpoint, it always made sense for WA to shift to a later start time, as several high schools around Westford such as Acton-Boxborough, Lincoln-Sudbury, and Newton-South have all adopted start times at or after 8:00 a.m.
According to Acton-Boxborough sophomore Tina Lin, even after having a few years to adjust to a later start time, students at AB are still noticing the benefits of the shift, including a higher attention span and increased energy levels.
“Having that extra hour or so later in the morning makes you feel less groggy,” Lin said. “Students are also able to get more sleep with a later start.”
By making schedules more similar to each other, schools are also able to cut down on wait times before athletic competitions.
For example, the cross country and spring track teams often have meets soon after school ends. As a member of both teams, there have been multiple away games where our bus has arrived before our opponents have been dismissed from school. The timing between our arrival and their dismissal leaves us waiting outside in weather conditions which can range from oppressive heat to persistent cold.
“Delaying the start time of school is worth it, even if it means leaving school later,” sophomore Sivaram Upadhyaya said. “It will push back the times of my practices and meets, but it shouldn’t be hard [for me] to adjust to, as most schools don’t arrive as early as we do to meets anyways.”
While the wait time could ideally be spent working on homework, the combination of nervousness and lack of places to sit and focus makes it hard to be productive.
In addition to eliminating wasted time, according to Lin, a later dismissal time has no significant impact on the sports that have games later in the evening, such as volleyball.
“I’m on AB’s volleyball team, and we’ve never had that issue of being too early or late at away games because of our start times,” Lin said.
Pushing back the start time allows the arrival times of teams to match with the dismissal time of the home team, effectively eliminating excess time while leaving evening games generally unaffected.
By deciding on a later start time, Westford is also following a nationwide trend of starting the school day later in the morning. The decision for a later start time should be celebrated from an athletic perspective as it allows for WA to be on the same page as other athletic teams in the area, and reduces the time commitment of certain sports teams.
In terms of practice areas and allotted times, Athletics Director Jeff Bunyon has been working with the School Committee and the directors of the practice facilities of multiple teams to ensure that the changes to lengths of practices are minimal. Bunyon’s work supports that the quality of athletics at WA will not be degraded due to the push to a later dismissal time.
Some students also are worried that the time they once had before practice and games to work on homework will be eliminated due to the later start time. However students always have the ability to wake up earlier, specifically at 7:35 a.m. as many are currently used to, to finish homework. In general, working on assignments in the morning can allow people to start their day on a more productive note, and make progress on their work before the school day even starts.
It can be difficult to work up the energy to do homework after spending six and a half hours at school and then participating in athletics or working a job. With the pushed start time, more students may be willing to wake up as they have for the past few years and get work done before school without the exhaustion of a 12 hour day weighing them down.
However, students who decide to wake up later due to the later start time will be taking advantage of a different benefit of the shift: being more in tune with natural sleep-wake cycles.
The current expected time for students to wake up to prepare for school is between 6:00 and 7:00 a.m., which neglects the natural inclinations of teenagers, and consequently, makes it more difficult for them to be healthy and productive. According to the National Library of Medicine, the optimal time for teenagers to go to sleep is 11:00 p.m. with an 8:00 a.m. wake up based on natural melatonin cycles and the circadian rhythm, or sleep-wake schedule, of the majority of high school students.
“[When I wake up earlier], I usually feel more groggy and I kinda forget anything that happened first block,” junior Jason Ledell said.
Only making it worse is the reality that most students go to bed later than 10:00 or 11:00 p.m. on weekends as a result of plans with loved ones, or simply to relax after a hard week at school. Having such an early start time makes it difficult to get back into a schedule when the weekend is over.
More research about sleep in recent years has revealed its importance to attention, memory, and overall health. With a start time before 8:00 a.m., school systems are impeding students’ ability to be as healthy as possible.
Fighting against the inherent sleep cycles of developing teenagers can have such detrimental effects that the American Academy of Pediatrics has recommended middle schools and high schools begin at 8:30 a.m., while California and Florida have both implemented laws preventing schools from beginning any earlier.
By switching the start times voluntarily, WPS has demonstrated that they prioritize student wellbeing, while also balancing the goal with most students’ preference to be dismissed from school earlier.
Students should look forward to the shift as an opportunity to finally accept their innate cycle of rest and productivity, and as a way to maximize energy levels.
“During the beginning of first block I usually feel tired and it’s harder to concentrate properly,” Upadhyaya said. “The later start will let me sleep for longer which will make me feel a lot more energized.”
Listening to natural sleep patterns can have numerous benefits including better quality sleep, which in itself helps students succeed academically by increasing focus, as well as helping students feel more awake during early morning classes.
The opposing argument that a later start time will just push students to stay up longer, while true to a certain extent, ignores the fact that the later they work, the more inclined students are to finish their work as fast as possible or find another time to finish it.
Regardless of when someone plans to wake up, 1:00 a.m. is considered a late time to go to bed. Students who work at this hour likely will not go to bed half an hour later just because the school day starts half an hour later. As a result, pushing back the start time allows these students the ability to gain more necessary sleep to prepare themselves for the next day.
While pushing the schedule back by less than half an hour may not seem like an impactful change, even just 15 minutes of additional sleep can have surprisingly positive effects. According to Sleep.com, a small, additional increment of sleep over a long period of time can ultimately produce sweeping benefits including reduced fatigue and appetite.
These benefits all become exponentially more achievable if the school day starts at the more reasonable 8:00 a.m. Overall, students are justified in having some level of dread for the disruption of their usual schedules. However, as with all changes, the new start time will cause some temporary stress for the long term benefit of a greater quality and quantity of sleep.
Students should look forward to the upcoming change and enter it with an optimistic attitude, as the possible benefits from the change are broad, but only possible if students are willing to have an open mind and make the best of the situation.
