Sleep, grades, more studied in effort to cut student stress
A group of about 225 skeptical parents questioned whether North Allegheny should start the high school day later and remove weighted grades from honors and Advanced Placement courses.
Those are two of four moves the district is considering in an effort to combat student stress. The others are better regulation of homework and testing.
“We don’t want to be the next district that has a suicide cluster,” Superintendent Robert Scherrer told parents at a meeting Monday. “We are the type of district that is ripe for that.”
The district hosted two panel discussions in the last week that featured experts on the topics of adolescent sleep and college admissions.
More than 250 people registered for the Nov. 9 panel
discussion, and another 200 watched the livestream of that discussion. Viewership of a YouTube video of the panel discussion reached 1,300 as of Wednesday morning, said Emily Shaffer, district spokeswoman. The issues also were discussed during the school board’s Nov. 8 work session.
A survey was sent via email Tuesday to all parents and guardians and to all students in grades 5-12 regarding start times and weighted grades. The deadline for completing the survey is 5 p.m. Wednesday.
Most of the discussion Monday concerned the proposal to start high school later and the sleep needs of adolescents.
“Chronic sleep loss in adolescence is a growing public health concern,” said Alpa Arora, a pediatrician at Heritage Valley Pediatrics, who also is a North Allegheny parent. “I am thrilled asa pediatrician that I live in a school district that is prioritizing not only their academics but their overall health.”
Dr. Arora said she discusses sleep with her patients and their parents “at every single checkup, whether I am seeing a 2month-old or a 16-yearold.”
Peter Franzen, assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, said the deep, restorative sleep everybody needs drops by 17 percent a year for six years, starting at age 11 or 12.
He added that 30 percent of adolescents get eight or more hours of sleep, and another 30 percent get around seven hours. But 44 percent of adolescents get six or fewer hours of sleep per night.
Elizabeth Rambeau, Western Pennsylvania chapter leader of the Start School Later movement, said that when high school starts after 8 a.m., “you see a decrease in car crashes, a decrease in the number of kids who report depression, anxiety, suicide. These are real things that have happened when school districts have changed start times.”
She added that most secondary schools in England start at 9 a.m. North Allegheny high school students start at 7:25 a.m.
Parents in the audience noted that starting school later would mean student athletes are up even later, trying to complete homework after later practices and home games and would miss more classes for away games starting right after school in a district that still ends earlier.
Others cited the safety issues around switching the start times for elementary and secondary kids, leaving elementary students waiting for buses in the dark duringthe winter.
A lot of discussion centered on electronics and the fact that the blue light from electronics disrupts the flow of melatonin, a hormone that regulates sleep. Most secondary students do their homework assignments on tablets or laptops provided by the school district, parent John Harrison said.
“When we went to school, we didn’t have technology. We didn’t have this problem,” he said, adding that students spend two or three hours in front of technology doing their homework. “Think about what the cause is and what you can change with the effect.”
Mr. Franzen and Dr. Arora agreed that screen time is an issue, with Mr. Franzen saying that screen time should be limited in the evening and end an hour or two before bedtime.
“This not just a North Allegheny problem. It is a teenager-in-general problem,” said senior Noah Fenton at the school board’s Nov. 8 meeting. “We are trying to impact teenage culture.”
Also at that meeting, board member Rick McClure said he is “suspicious” of some of the studies being cited by proponents of changing the start time of the high school.
A 2014 study out of the University of Minnesota, “the seminal study of what we are talking about tonight,” shows a “weak, but statistically significant correlation between number of hours of sleep and grades,” hesaid.
More than 76 percent of students in that study said they didn’t have problems with sleepiness during the school day, and only 3.5 percent said sleepiness was a big problem, he said.
Board member Libby Blackburn noted the possible detriment to student athletes.
“I have seen lacrosse practicing to 11 at night. They may get to sleep in later, but now practices are ending at 11:30,” she said. “I see a horrible loss of class time, which is going to cause more homework and more stress for the kids.”
On the subject of weighted grades, parents expressed concerns that removing the weights from honors and AP classes would hurt high-achieving students from getting into top colleges.
Panel members, including admissions officers from Duquesne University and Juniata College, said the weights are not considered for admission but are usually considered for scholarships.
Under the district’s timeline, the school board will be givenpossible recommendations on Dec. 13, with a follow-up, if necessary, on Jan. 13. If changes are recommended, the board will vote on Jan. 24.