Later high school starts?

The later high school starts issue was put on inactive status. The Live Free or Die Alliance is monitoring any new developments in regard to this issue; any new information will be posted here. If you have new information regarding later highschool starts please post it in our town hall or forward it to info@livefreeordiealliance.com

The National Sleep Foundation says it bluntly: "Teens' natural sleep cycle puts them in conflict with school start times."

Which is why it endorses later start times for high school students.

"If teens need about 9 1/4 hours of sleep to do their best and naturally go to sleep around 11:00 pm, one way to get more sleep is to start school later," advises the foundation in a statement.

This has been a national issue for several years and a New Hampshire school has decided to address it: The Windham School Board voted last week to join a handful of other Granite state schools to push back the start time for high schoolers 24 minutes -- from 7:28 a.m. to 7:52 a.m. starting this fall.

"I think this is only the tip of the iceberg," New Hampshire Board of Education member Fred Bramante told the Union Leader. "I think that Windham is really pushing the envelope here."

The Union Leader reported later start times in Weare, Farmington and Hopkinton.

"I know the decision was made, in part, with the idea that students perform better with a later start time to their day. I can't say that was the only reason, but I know it factored into it," said Tina Tanguay, assistant principal of John Stark Regional High School in Weare.

There are factors that complicate the later start for just high school students: bus schedules, after-school sports, and after-school jobs.

"These are complex issues that are not just about what the research said, but how they impact families and issues around a child's life," Mark Joyce, executive director of the New Hampshire School Administrators Association, told the Union Leader.