Start School Later meets with the Dept. of Health

Tomorrow, July 18, the leaders of the national Start School Later initiative will be meeting with directors at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration of the Department of Health. There is a connection between early school start times and depression and suicidal thoughts that needs to be addressed.

The full press release is below, and I’ll post the update from the meeting in the next few days. If you’d like to weigh in with your support of later school start times you can sign the petition at http://www.startschoollater.net
RELEASE: July 16, 2012: GRASSROOTS GROUP ASKS FEDERAL AGENCY TO ADDRESS LINK BETWEEN EARLY HIGH SCHOOL START TIMES, MENTAL HEALTH, AND TEEN SUICIDES:

Contact: Heather Macintosh, 410-279-4569 heathermac@verizon.net
Dr. Terra Ziporyn Snider, Co-Director, 410-262-6616

Start School Later, a national coalition advocating for sane, humane high school start times, is meeting with Dr. Anne Mathews-Younes, Director of the Division of Prevention, Traumatic Stress and Special Programs, and Dr. Richard McKeon, Director of the Suicide Prevention Resource Center, at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), an agency of the US Dept of Health and Human Services (HHS), Wednesday, July 18, in Rockville, MD.

Compelling scientific research shows that adolescents’ sleep needs are being dangerously compromised by the extremely early school schedules of many US high schools. Waking at 5:30 to catch a bus and begin school in the 7 o’clock hour is incompatible with adolescent sleep needs and causing teens to miss out on the crucial sleep they need for physical and mental health and development and optimum academic achievement. Sleep deprivation is strongly linked to anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation, among other health effects.

SAMHSA is an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which, in turn, is increasingly recognizing the importance sleep plays in the health and wellness of young people.

“We’re looking forward to discussing ways federal agencies might be helpful in raising awareness and facilitating policies to ensure safe, healthy school hours for all children,” says Terra Ziporyn Snider, PhD, Start School Later’s Co-Director. “This has been impossible to achieve in many local school systems, where all too often politics and myth trump student health and well-being.”

Start School Later is an all-volunteer, national coalition working to ensure that all public schools can set hours compatible with health, safety, equity, and learning. Coalition members attending the SAMHSA meeting include Dr. Terra Ziporyn Snider and Kari Oakes, PA-C, both from Maryland, as well as Terry Cralle, RN, of Virginia, and Debbie Coleman, MBA, faculty member at the Miami University (Ohio).

Start School Later – Contact your Senators!

Thanks to Terra Snider, Kari Oakes, and Mary King for delivering the Start School Later petition to our Washington State Senators Murry and Cantwell in person on Weds, April 18. This team is committing many hours to speak with congress people from around the country on this important issue. Now is the time for each of us to reach out and voice our support of this initiative with our state congress people. Please do so today!

Senator Patty Murray
448 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Phone: 202-224-2621
Fax: 202-224-0238
Toll Free: 866-481-9186
Email: Web Form: http://www.murray.senate.gov/email/index.cfm

Senator Maria Cantwell
311 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Phone: 202-224-3441
Fax: 202-228-514
Toll Free: 888-648-7328
Email: HTTP://Cantwell.senate.gov

For those of you reading this in other states, you can learn more about this initiative at http://www.startschoollater.net. There is a tool to find the congress people for your zip code here: http://independenceave.org/. Please contact them now, as the Start School Later team is systematically contacting all the Congress and House of Representatives. Together we can make this important improvement for thousands of teens!

Time to Help Teens Sleep

Teen Sleep

Do you remember dragging yourself out of bed for high school, then struggling to stay awake during class?  You were not alone in this.  Physiologically, teens are set to go to sleep later, and get up later.  Unfortunately school start times require that students be alert and functioning before their bodies are awake.  The good news is that a national movement to start schools later is gathering momentum, and you can join in!

Teen Body Clocks

As part of puberty, the circadian rhythm or ‘body clock’ shifts later.  Research in the last couple years has shown that this shift to later hours happens early in puberty, before other changes may appear.  Decades ago it was thought teens’ late hours were because they enjoyed late-night socializing or sadly some teens were called ‘lazy’ because they slept late.  We now know these sleep hours are based on their physiology. 

This shift can contribute to teens being sleep deprived in that they aren’t able to go to sleep earlier in the night because they aren’t sleepy, but yet they have to get up at a time they are sleeping well to go to school.  Research shows 80% of high school students are significantly sleep deprived, that’s a higher percentage than adults!

Help your Teen get Adequate Sleep

First, figure out how much sleep your teenager needs each night. It might help to remember a vacation when s/he was sleeping on their own schedule and was rested & energetic during the day. Next, plan to get up at the latest time for school, and count backwards to determine the bedtime that allows enough sleep. If it is not possible to go to bed at that time during the week, allow extra time for sleep on weekends.

Sometimes teens aren’t able to fall asleep even when they are in bed at a reasonable time. This is because their body clock is shifted later. They may need medical help to shift their body clock earlier.

Help Change Teens Sleep Nationally

In the last several months an effort to Start School Later has grown. There is a national petition to legislate that schools not start before 8am. This will be presented to Congress during National Sleep Awareness Week, March 5-11. Please join this effort to improve the teen sleep and the entire teen experience by signing this today (it will take 2 minutes). My hope is that we can change generations of teen experience of highschool and that time of life.

Sign the petition today!http://signon.org/sign/promote-legislation-to.fb1?source=s.fb&r_by=1521139