PRO:

An early start time of 7:30 a.m. is a problem for student’s education, safety, and overall mental health. Changing the start time to 8:30 a.m. at Poway High would help the students in all these categories making the learning environment a better place.
Student’s are constantly pushing themselves to be the best they can be, whether it is challenging themselves academically, committing to a sport, or earning payment at a job. All of these activities can leave little to no room for homework leaving students restless when they wake up in the morning to be on time for school at 7:30 a.m. A recent study funded by the National Sleep Foundation at Harvard University found that a teenager needs a range of 9 to 9 1/2 hours of sleep per night (National Sleep Foundation).
A later start time at 8:30 a.m. would still give students more time to ensure they are getting a healthy amount of sleep to decrease the risks of sleep deprivation, such as mood swings, frustration, and more susceptible to sickness.
The current start time student’s have a harder time waking up early making them late and rushing to get to school by 7:30 a.m. leaving them speeding on their way to school to get there on time. Student’s have a less chance ‘drowsy driving’ because they have more time to wake up and start the day.
Overall, a later start time will help students academic performance to ensure they are ready to learn, attentive in their learning, and not falling asleep in class.
A later start time of 8:30 a.m. is a necessity for ensuring students at Poway High School, as well as public and private education across the United States, have a healthy academic education, a safer morning, and better state of health.

CON:

Everyone always wants school to start later, but has anyone ever thought about how the law will negatively affect students? On Oct. 13 Calif. government announced that starting June 1 2022 all middle schools in Calif. will start at 8:00 and all high schools will begin at 8:30 or later.
“I don’t like starting later because right now I have more time to do what I want after school, and practice would be a lot later because school would get out later, ” freshman Callen O’ Mahony said.
I agree because if the government was thinking about all aspects of this issue, they would have recognized that students will stay up later for homework because their extracurriculars will start later, and teens will end up getting less sleep, when school starting later is supposed to allow students to get more sleep.
“I wouldn’t like the new start time because it would mean that I would have to stay up late doing homework,” junior Parsa Farahani said.
Although sleeping in is nice, school will be starting right in traffic hour, meaning it would take longer to get to school, and students would only leave a little after what they do now to make sure they arrive at school on time.
“I don’t like the new start time because getting out at 3:30 is dumb, and I have other family related things to do,” freshman Vivian Le said.
Clearly the law should not have been made at all because even though it may seem like it is beneficial for students, sleep and time to spend with friends and family is limited. All aspects of this new law are bad, and the government should remove it.