Before you read the sleep deprivation article from the last page, I asked you to keep notes about four things:

1. Make a list of all of the harms discussed in the article about overtired kids
2. Make a list of all of the inherent barriers that keep students from getting enough sleep
3. Make a list of all of the plans that can be taken to allow these students to sleep.
4. Make a list of all of the mini-stories that describe how the proposed plans produce solvency for these students.

For this week's discussion assignment, I want you to organize these notes into a four-part outline and post your outline for other students to read. We are going to be giving feedback to each other's outlines, so make sure that your outline is readable and it makes sense. Article below

BACK TO SCHOOL; Later may be smarter; Pop quiz: What's the easiest way to aid sleepy students?

Full Text

As summer winds down, another new school year brings fresh notebooks, sharp pencils and -- for many kids -- a new cycle of sleep deprivation.

With classes that start as early as 7 a.m. and buses that pull up long before sunrise, some 80% of American kids in grades 6 through 12 are falling short of sleep recommendations during the school year, according to research by the National Sleep Foundation, a sleep advocacy group.

Overtired kids, studies suggest, struggle with depression. They gain weight and get in more car accidents. Their grades suffer. And many turn to caffeine, with questionable results for productivity and unknown effects on the development of young brains.

Now, fueled by accumulating research showing that adolescent bodies are designed to sleep late and that delaying school start times -- even by just 30 minutes -- makes a huge difference in how well teens feel and perform, an increasing number of schools around the country are ringing morning bells later than they used to. Many more are thinking about it.

At the same time, there are strong pockets of resistance to change from administrators and parents who think that bus schedules will get too complicated, starting later will interfere with after-school programs or kids will stay up later if they know they can sleep in a little more.

Despite the inconveniences, sleep researchers emphasize the need to view sleep, like food and exercise, as a pillar of health.

"There are all these other things we do to ensure success for our kids, and getting them to have adequate sleep is probably one of the most important things," says Judith Owens, a sleep researcher at Brown Medical School in Providence, R.I. "Parents need to take this as seriously as eating right, using seatbelts and putting on sunscreen."

Minnesota study

One of the first, longest-lasting and most influential teen sleep experiments started in Minnesota in the mid-1990s. Minneapolis high schools shifted start times from 7:15 to 8:40. The nearby suburb of Edina shifted from 7:25 to 8:30.

Even though the two districts couldn't be more different on scales of race, socioeconomics and other factors, results in both places appeared immediately, says Kyla Wahlstrom, director of the Center for Applied Research and Educational Improvement at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.

Students were noticeably more alert in the first two periods of the day. The cafeteria was calmer. There were fewer fights in the halls. Students, who were now getting nearly an hour more sleep each night, said they felt less depressed. They were raising their hands instead of falling asleep at their desks. Even parents thought their kids were easier to live with.

Over time, Wahlstrom and colleagues documented, students started getting better grades on homework and quizzes. Schools reported lower tardiness rates. Attendance rates went up. Graduation rates improved.

Since then, reports from places such as Brazil, Israel and Rhode Island have turned up similar trends. Even small changes appear to make big differences.

In one of the most recent studies, published last month in the Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine, Owens and colleagues found that, after a change in start time from 8 to 8:30 a.m., students at a small, private New England high school reported fewer depressed feelings (a shift from 65.8% to 45%), better moods (from 84% reporting irritated and annoyed feelings to 62.6%); and less sleepiness during the day. (Before the shift, 69.1% of students said they rarely or never got a good night's sleep compared with 33.7% after the shift.)

Class attendance improved: Teacher-reported first-class absence and tardiness rates dropped by 45%. Fewer students visited the health center (from 15.3% of students to 4.6%).

It wasn't a panacea, Owens says, but "virtually every single parameter we looked at changed in the positive direction."

Sleep seems to beget sleep, the study suggested. Though the new schedule started just 30 minutes later, students went to bed 15 minutes earlier and got 45 more minutes of sleep each day. Kids said they felt so much better that they were motivated to go to bed sooner and sleep more. Owens suspects that extra sleep also helped them get their homework done more efficiently, affording extra time in the evening to wind down and get to bed.

"These kids get into a vicious cycle of being exhausted, taking five hours to do three hours of homework and having to stay up later to get it done," she says.

The melatonin shift

Blame biology -- not laziness -- for making teens push the snooze button over and over. As kids approach puberty, there is a two-hour shift in when their bodies release melatonin, the hormone causing sleepiness. As a result, teens and preteens find it impossible to fall asleep until about 11 p.m., even if they try. Yet teenagers still need an average of 9.25 hours of slumber each night.

On top of this, Owens says, there is also a delay in when a dip in alertness occurs during the early morning hours. In adults, this low point hits between 3 a.m. and 5 a.m.; in adolescents, between about 5 a.m. and 7 a.m. Thus while their alarm clocks are telling teens to get out of bed and demanding that their brains perform, their bodies are screaming at them to keep sleeping.

"There's no doubt that schools starting before 8 or 8:15 are too early if you just do the simple math," says Amy Wolfson, who studies adolescent sleep at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass. "You're not going to speak to anyone in my field who is going to say they think starting at 7:15 makes any sense at all."

And it's not just high school students who suffer, Wolfson says. The melatonin shift may occur by age 10 or 11.

In a 2007 study, Wolfson and colleagues found that middle school students in urban New England whose schools started at 7:15 were getting much less sleep, exhibiting more behavior problems and were tardy four times as often as kids who started at 8:37. The eighth-graders at the earlier-starting school also got worse grades than their peers who slept more. (In studies like this, researchers make sure that comparison schools are similar in size, socioeconomics, race and other factors.)

On average, sixth-graders get 8.4 hours of sleep on school nights, according to the National Sleep Foundation. High school seniors get just 6.9 hours.

In addition to mood, behavior and learning issues, scientists are starting to uncover subtler ways that chronic sleep loss can hurt kids. Some studies show that sleep deprivation compromises the immune system. Others suggest that, with too little sleep, the body releases higher levels of hormones that induce hunger, possibly contributing to obesity.

Tired teens may also be more vulnerable behind the wheel. In two studies -- one in Kentucky published in 2008 and one in Virginia that was presented at a meeting earlier this year -- scientists linked early high school start times with higher rates of car accidents. (In the Virginia study, there were 65.4 car crashes per 1,000 teen drivers in a city with an early start time and 46.2 per 1,000 in a neighboring city with a later start -- a 40% difference.)

To stay awake, young people often turn to coffee, soda, energy drinks and other caffeinated beverages. In a public high school in Massachusetts, 95% of polled students reported drinking caffeine in the prior two weeks, mostly in soda and in the afternoon and evening, Wolfson and a colleague reported in June.

There are no published guidelines for how much caffeine is too much for adolescents, Wolfson says, but it stays in the body for up to five hours. Even if caffeinated kids manage to fall asleep, caffeine worsens sleep quality. And no one knows how caffeine might affect developing brains, but plenty of experts are concerned about the link between sugar in soda and weight gain.

Schools respond

As the research piles up, a growing number of schools are moving toward later start times. No one has kept track of how many schools have made the change. But experts say they are fielding a growing number of calls from districts asking for advice about whether and how to switch. This spring, Wolfson says, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention hosted a meeting of sleep researchers to talk about school start times and teen sleep deprivation as national health issues.

Since the discussion on school start times began more than a decade ago, not one district making the change has opted to change back. But the issue remains volatile in many districts, where administrators and parents are resistant to changing schedules.

In districts where schools still start early, sleep experts suggest that students start preparing for sleep at 10 p.m. by turning off electronics and avoiding the stimulation of social media. They encourage parents and kids to establish calming bedtime routines (maybe a warm bath or a book under lights that aren't too bright). And they advise trying not to go to bed much more than an hour later than normal on weekends: Many teenagers shift schedules by three or four hours on Friday and Saturday, Owens says, essentially creating a weekly battle with jet lag.

Teenagers need to get enough sleep, says Mary Carskadon, director of sleep research at the E.P. Bradley Hospital at Brown Medical School. During the second decade of life, the brain reorganizes and rewires itself to strengthen signals that matter, retain information and consolidate learning. Much of that happens during sleep.

"The brain is probably going through as rapid development during the adolescent years as it does during the first year of life," Carskadon says. For kids, she adds, "sleep is brain food."

health@ latimes.com

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Making a case for late

A later start to the school day may sound good -- but what about the inconvenience factor, and how do you get your school district to sign on?

"Eight Major Obstacles to Delaying School Start Times," at the National Sleep Foundation's website, www.sleepfoundation.org, covers issues such as altered transportation schedules and the effect on after-school activities and on the time teachers have available to spend with their families.

"General Advocacy Tips for Changing School Start Times," also at the sleep foundation website, provides information for those who want to see later start times implemented in their school district.

(In both cases, select "school start time" in the "sleep topics" menu.)

U.S. Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-San Jose) introduced a bill, called the "Zzz's to A's Resolution," which would recommend that secondary schools start the day no earlier than 9 a.m. It has been in the House committee on education and labor for more than a year.

--Emily Sohn

Caption: PHOTO: ZZZZZ: As children approach puberty, hormones shift them to a later sleep schedule.; PHOTOGRAPHER:Anne Cusack Los Angeles Times; PHOTO: (no caption); PHOTOGRAPHER:Bryan Chan Los Angeles Times

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(Copyright (c) 2010 Los Angeles Times)