States look at legislation to combat lack of sleep
Teenagers don’t get enough sleep, and California’s effort to fix the problem may serve as a wakeup call to other states’ lawmakers.
A law recently signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom that mandates later start times for most students — no earlier than 8 a.m. in middle school and 8:30 a.m. in high school — is the first statewide response in the United States to overwhelming evidence that chronic lack of sleep impairs teens.
But it is hardly the only attempt to address the issue.
Individual cities, regions and school districts across the U.S. have tried for years to afford their students the sleep benefits of later school starts.
Their efforts are just one aspect of a broader societal phenomenon so harmful that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declared it a public health epidemic five years ago. Simply put, a staggering number of Americans — or, better said, a number of staggering Americans — don’t get enough sleep.
There is no simple way to alter that reality, a reminder of which will be heard early in the morning on Sunday, Nov. 3, as daylightsaving time ends, bringing with it the usual spate of sleeprelated complications.
Last November, nearly 60% of California voters backed a ballot proposition to end twiceayear clock changes, in part because of the havoc they wreak on sleep. State legislators followed with a bill to put California on permanent daylightsaving time.
It passed the Assembly earlier this year but is now on hold until 2020.
Assemblyman Kansen Chu, DSan Jose, who introduced the legislation, said he wanted more time to explore the option of going on permanent standard time.
Only two states — Arizona and Hawaii — do not move their clocks every spring and autumn. Both abandoned the system in the late 1960s, noting that their residents receive plenty of sunlight yearround.
Other states, including Minnesota, Florida and several more, have considered legislation to remain on daylightsaving time yearround. Oregon already passed a law to do so. But since legislators there wanted all the clocks on the West Coast showing the same time, their law is on hold until Washington and California do the same.
And to make the problem even more complicated, any state that jettisons biannual clock changing still needs approval from
Congress.
The specifics of California’s new school law reflect the complexity of any kind of change to the sleep patterns of Americans. The bill exempts some of the state’s rural districts, makes allowances for optional “zero period” early classes, and is being phased in over three years.
A bill with similar provisions was rejected by lawmakers in 2017 and vetoed by thenGov. Jerry Brown in 2018. Critics say local communities and school boards should be able to decide their own start times.
The number of Americans who say they don’t get even the minimum recommended seven hours of sleep per night has increased significantly since 2013, and nearly onethird of Americans now say they sleep six hours or less.