As a high school student, there are many times when I wake up and go to school tired and sluggish. Most of my peers feel the same way. There are many ways this can negatively affect you and your brain, especially at school. Things like impatience, mood swings, and taxing affects on mental abilities all stem from early-morning starts at schools. In other words, students don’t reach their full potential when they’re tired, and the current schedule makes it almost impossible not to be.

Come Monday morning you are required to be on campus by 7:30 a.m. This may not seem like a crazy time to start, but when it comes to extracurricular activities and zero periods, most students don’t have the luxury of a full 8 hours of sleep. According to iflscience.com, as a teenager, your brain doesn’t fully wake up till 10 a.m. which is approximately 2-3 class periods of learning below maximum potential. This creates many questions about whether or not schools should change the start time of school.

There are already schools that have changed their start times due to the research that points to the idea that not all brains are fully awake in the early mornings. Schools like Oxford University allow college students to take classes at 10 a.m. which is a huge difference from waking up at 7-8 a.m. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the average start time of schools in the US is 8:03. But in 42 states more than 75% of schools start before 8:30 a.m. All schools in the Chino Valley Unified School District are in this percentage.

When the idea of changing the bell schedule was proposed it appeared to be a reasonable concept for board members to discuss, and it even made students hopeful. However, this proposal was quickly vetoed. According to Jerry Brown the Governor of California, it was too much of change that wasn’t needed. By this can he means the new bill will affect the the fact that class periods would have to be extended, which causes the school day to end as late as 3:00 if not later.

This change can then affect the bus schedules and the cost would skyrocket if the schools need to purchase additional busses, according to other officials. Jerry Brown is the governor of California and in order to change the bell schedule in districts, the proposal must be passed by him which seems unlikely now. As expected, this sparked an outrage among students that struggle to learn due to the amount of sleep that they are getting.

The idea was proposed earlier this school year and the decision of declining the proposal was in early September, 2018. Supporters of the new proposal asked many questions on why it was declined and vetoed. The governor’s response to this proposal left the proposers silent, and left the responsibility to school boards across California.

Even with all the declines and vetoes to this new bill, most students still want the delayed bell schedule including myself. As for my intake on this whole situation, I believe that even though this will result in getting out at 3 o’clock, health is most important and if the brain isn’t fully ready to learn at school then we will never be able to reach our full potential.