I once asked a vice principal (way back, 10 yrs ago) why schools started so early when lack of sleep was known to be bad. He said it was so there was time for sports in the evening. If you started at 10 or 11 school would run until 6 and it would start getting dark.

Sports are why kids sleep is ruined.

A boys school actually did a test where they started the school day at 10.30am, and nearly every teenagers grades improved, sometimes dramatically.

I wish I could find that reference, but it proved to me what I knew: I really would've done better if I'd not had to get up at 6.30am so I could walk the hour to school (both parents worked).

Here's a link to either the study you're looking for, or a similar one: http://conservancy.umn.edu/bitstream/139295/1/2002%20NASSP%2...

It was a school study done in Minnesota.

It's sports and so parents can drop them off before work. Both play a role.

This has also confused me as well, but I had never considered that. Now it makes sense.

I think it's mostly parents who want to be at work in time.

When I drop my daughter off at 6:45 AM (school starts at 7:30), sometimes their football team is out on the field practicing under lights.

Which is insane. These are kids not professional football players. I like sports, but the entire culture of children and teenage sports in the US is totally whack.

The same could be said about traditional academics. Just like elite academic schools, there are elite athletic schools that are the early proving/training grounds for aspiring college and pro athletes.

Why is ok to devote hours to an academic pursuit and not okay to do the same for an athletic pursuit? You could argue the "middle ground" doesn't exist in athletics like it does for other professions, but that would assume you're classifying school as simply vocational training.

Maybe, but when I was a teenager, at least, starting at 8 or 10 would make no difference to me - I would just tend to fall asleep 2 hours later. At least in some cases, the real issue is the number of waking hours in a day demanded of a student.

The teens are actually a particularly problematic period for humans in this respect, because it's a time when you have the sleep requirements of a child, but the natural bedtime of an adult. Most 8-year-olds can't easily stay up past 11. Most 13-year-olds can't easily fall asleep before 10. Both need at least 9 hours of sleep.

This is what jumped out at me, too. There are studies linking obesity, poor school performance, and problems with emotional control (just to name a few) to lack of sleep in children. Having to stay up late to do homework seems counterproductive.

I agree and felt bad for the kid. Why is she being allowed to stay up until midnight doing homework?