Healthy School Start Times

Adolescent sleep deprivation is a public health epidemic. While there are many reasons teens don’t get enough sleep, early school start times is one of the key factors contributing to this public health crisis. Thus, in 2014, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended that all middle and high schools in the U.S. implement healthy school start times of 8:30 a.m.

As a consultant for a number of school districts across the country, Dr. Meltzer has provided education about the science behind healthy school start times and the impact of changing school start times on health outcomes.

Schedule a free consult to learn more about how Dr. Meltzer can support your efforts to implement or evaluate healthy school start times, including presentations for your organization or school board.

Research on School Start Times

Dr. Meltzer has been actively involved with school start times advocacy and research for almost 20 years. Her first published study compared school start times in homeschool vs. public/private students, demonstrating how the combination of early school start times and transportation time limit adolescent sleep opportunity.

In 2017, Dr. Meltzer began working with the Cherry Creek School District in suburban Denver, Colorado to evaluate the impact of changing school start times on health outcomes. The 2017 paper focuses on the engagement process the district went through prior to changing school start times. The other papers and reports share the findings from the Changing Start Times: Longitudinal Evaluation Study (CaSTLES), which was funded by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Evidence for Action Program.

During the pandemic, Dr. Meltzer partnered with a team of sleep scientists from across the U.S. for the Nationwide Education and Sleep in Teens During COVID (NESTED) study. The aims were to document the impact of different learning approaches (in-person, online, hybrid) and school start times on sleep and health outcomes for adolescents.