There have been several studies showing that teenagers are chronically sleep deprived. This is certainly not earth shattering news to any parents of teenagers, or to those of us who remember our own teenaged years. Studies have also shown that sleep deprivation can be responsible for a drop in grades – also not a surprise. The big surprise is what the Toronto District School Board is planning to do about it.

The TDSB is looking to set up a pilot project in one high school in the Greater Toronto Area where classes would not begin until 11:30 AM. The school has yet to be selected. This has been tried in several schools in the U.S. and they are reporting less absenteeism, fewer dropouts, and better grades. However they are not mentioning what time the classes started. As an example, there are schools in the U.S. that had 7:15 AM start times who moved to 8:30 AM – not 11:30 AM as planned for the school in the Greater Toronto Area.

I thought that the students in the GTA would be jumping up and down with joy at the thought of starting school so late, but many are concerned that this will interfere with their part time jobs. It will also be difficult to coordinate with teachers’ schedules, after school activities, and busing.
What do you think about this idea? Are we giving teenagers a scholastic advantage? Or are we giving them permission to go to bed too late and get up too late? What ever happened to “Early to bed, and early to rise……”?