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Should Sleepy Teens Get Later CPS High School Start Time?

By Ted Cox | November 20, 2014 1:03pm | Updated on November 20, 2014 1:32pm
 Ald. Margaret Laurino led a Health Committee hearing on the issue of teenage students and sleep.
Ald. Margaret Laurino led a Health Committee hearing on the issue of teenage students and sleep.
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CITY HALL — A City Council committee took up the issue of teen sleep deprivation Thursday after an earlier study suggested later school start times could address what it called a chronic problem.

"We can't move right in and change start times," said Ald. Margaret Laurino (39th), who called for the Health Committee hearing with a resolution in September. "My intent today was to start the conversation."

"Sleep is as important to our health as food," testified Dr. Stephen Sheldon, director of the Sleep Medicine Center at Lurie Children's Hospital.

Laurino said that, if Chicago Public Schools can gradually address student diets in lunch programs, then it should be able to adopt the findings of an American Academy of Pediatrics study policy statement put out in August calling for later school start times for teenagers.

 Ald. Margaret Laurino (r.) talks with Drs. Stephen Sheldon and Phyllis Zee before Thursday's hearing on teen sleep deprivation.
Ald. Margaret Laurino (r.) talks with Drs. Stephen Sheldon and Phyllis Zee before Thursday's hearing on teen sleep deprivation.
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DNAinfo/Ted Cox

Starting school one hour later was suggested.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel and CPS Chief Executive Officer Barbara Byrd-Bennett dismissed those findings at the time, but Laurino said she hoped they would hear the testimony from Thursday's hearing and perhaps shift their positions on it.

Dr. Phyllis Zee, director of the Sleep Disorders Center and associate director of the Center for Sleep and Circadian Biology with Northwestern University Medicine, testified that, due to teens' development, they go through a natural period where their circadian rhythms make them prone to staying up later and have difficulty rising.

"It's not just because they're lazy and don't want to get up in the morning," Zee said.

She drew parallels with narcolepsy and said sleep deprivation left teens prone to poor memory retention, discouraging learning, as well as obesity and mental-health issues.

"Teenagers are chronically sleep-deprived," Sheldon added. "If you don't sleep, you don't learn."

Sheldon said it made teens prone to increased anxiety, stress and depression, and both doctors said "drowsy driving" was largely responsible for teen traffic accidents.

Sheldon said one study showed that teens deprived of sleep for 24 hours performed worse in a traffic test than drivers who were legally drunk.

Zee testified that when Minneapolis delayed school start times, truancy and absenteeism declined, and that a 2010 CPS study showed that grades and attendance were lower in morning classes than in the afternoon. She estimated that test scores could rise 10 percent by delaying start times in middle school and high school by an hour.

Sheldon says teens require 8½ to 9½ hours of sleep a night, and if they don't get it "it's similar to jet-lagging in the same time zone." He said treating it is "just like treating jet lag."

Ald. George Cardenas (12th), chairman of the Health Committee, said he has a 13-year-old daughter and "I struggle with it every morning to get her going." He added that she sometimes sleeps to 1 p.m. on weekends to make up for the lost sleep.

"They're sleeping like bears," he said. "It's crazy."

Sheldon said that, as in treating jet lag, a gradual approach was better and recommended teens sleeping only a couple of hours later than their usual wakeup time on weekends.

Both Zee and Sheldon recommended that parents monitor lighting to encourage sleep, with bright light in the morning and dimmed lights in the evening after 9. They also said smartphone and computer use should be discouraged after 9 p.m., because the bright light again tends to inhibit the onset of sleep.

"They can't fall asleep, not that they don't want to fall asleep," Sheldon said.

Zee said that, in an informal experiment, Evanston Township High School found that bright lights in an advanced-placement biology class "improved performance."

"Teenagers are definitely in a tough spot," Cardenas said, adding, "I like what I'm hearing."

All agreed it would be difficult to change the institutional thinking at the Board of Education, as well as transportation logistics for students citywide, but Sheldon said, at very least, sleep health should be taught as part of the general curriculum. He also recommended teaching reading and math later in the day and not having tests first thing in the morning.

Laurino said CPS monitored the hearing, and she expected to have conversations with CPS officials on the issue and would hold additional hearings next year to see how things were progressing on the matter.

The hearing was delayed at the start when Cardenas was late to arrive. "Aldermen, I apologize. I overslept," he said, adding, "I just love humor."