@article{ref1,
title="School start times for middle school and high school students - United States, 2011-12 school year",
journal="MMWR: Morbidity and mortality weekly report",
year="2015",
author="Wheaton, Anne G. and Ferro, Gabrielle A. and Croft, Janet B.",
volume="64",
number="30",
pages="809-813",
abstract="Adolescents who do not get enough sleep are more likely to be overweight; not engage in daily physical activity; suffer from depressive symptoms; engage in unhealthy risk behaviors such as drinking, smoking tobacco, and using illicit drugs; and perform poorly in school. However, insufficient sleep is common among high school students, with less than one third of U.S. high school students sleeping at least 8 hours on school nights. In a policy statement published in 2014, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) urged middle and high schools to modify start times as a means to enable students to get adequate sleep and improve their health, safety, academic performance, and quality of life. AAP recommended that &quot;middle and high schools should aim for a starting time of no earlier than 8:30 a.m.&quot;. To assess state-specific distributions of public middle and high school start times and establish a pre-recommendation baseline, CDC and the U.S. Department of Education analyzed data from the 2011-12 Schools and Staffing Survey (SASS). Among an estimated 39,700 public middle, high, and combined schools* in the United States, the average start time was 8:03 a.m. Overall, only 17.7% of these public schools started school at 8:30 a.m. or later. The percentage of schools with 8:30 a.m. or later start times varied greatly by state, ranging from 0% in Hawaii, Mississippi, and Wyoming to more than three quarters of schools in Alaska (76.8%) and North Dakota (78.5%). A school system start time policy of 8:30 a.m. or later provides teenage students the opportunity to achieve the 8.5-9.5 hours of sleep recommended by AAP and the 8-10 hours recommended by the National Sleep Foundation.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="0149-2195",
doi="",
url="http://dx.doi.org/"
}