Time Change or Time for Change: Missouri Voters Want Later High School Start Times
By : Courtney Vahle, Ed.D.
Published On: March 20, 2025
In the ninth iteration of the SLU/YouGov poll, sponsored by the PRiME Center, 900 likely Missouri voters were asked about a variety of current issues, including their view on school start times. Below, we share those newly released results.
It’s that time of year. The alarm clocks rang at the same time on Sunday, but you got an hour less sleep thanks to the beginning of Daylight Savings Time.
That groggy feeling? It's how many high school students feel each school day, regardless of shifts to the calendar which begs the question: Why does school start so early anyways?
Most Kansas City and St. Louis-area high school students need to be in class ready to learn around 7:37 a.m. They will still be waking up when it's dark outside in order to scarf down breakfast, shower, dress, get to school, stop at their locker, and be in their seats on time.
Sound exhausting? Imagine how students feel! My research for the Policy Research in Missouri Education (PRiME) Center at Saint Louis University found the average start time at Missouri high schools is 7:48 a.m. Not only is that earlier than high schools in 32 other states, but it also is earlier than all eight border states and the national average according to data from the National Center for Education Statistics.
The start time in Missouri is earlier than the vast majority of states. It also is almost 45 minutes earlier than the doctor-recommended time. Experts from the American Academy of Pediatrics recommend that school starts at 8:30 a.m. or later during middle and high school to promote adequate sleep. Fewer than three percent of high schools in Missouri follow this advice.
School start times are concerning to parents, too. In an August 2024 SLU/YouGov poll of 900 likely Missouri voters, more than 71 percent of respondents aged 18 to 44 supported pushing back high school start times until 8:30 a.m. or later.
Parents wonder if everyone is struggling to pull their exhausted high schoolers out of bed each morning. The data says yes, but that a broken system of early starts is to blame.
Because of shifting circadian rhythms in adolescents, it is difficult for them to fall asleep much earlier than 11 p.m according to Mayo Clinic sleep specialist Robin M. Lloyd, M.D. Adolescents need around 8.5–9.5 hours of sleep per night. With a current wake up call of, conservatively, 6 a.m., they would need to go to bed at 9 p.m. – something that is a biologically difficult task.
Despite the suggestion from medical experts, studies show that teenagers only sleep an average of seven hours per night. Why? Jam-packed activity schedules, social events, academic pressures such as homework and college preparation, and, of course, the early morning wake up calls each school day.
Sleep deprivation has lasting impacts on physical health and safety, mental health and behavior, academics, and school performance, and can’t be “made up for” by getting extra weekend sleep.
If health experts and stakeholders agree, why are we still sending high school students to school so early?
So the saying goes, an object at rest stays at rest. There is precedent here in Missouri for school to start early, and many aspects of daily life have been built around that precedent: childcare, sports schedules, and transportation systems. But just because we've always started school this early doesn't mean we should continue doing it.
Brand new poll results, released in full by Saint Louis University on March 18th, suggest that nearly 60% of likely Missouri voters are not resistant to pushing back high school start times. Still, a uniform approach to school start times across schools, districts, and the state would allow for more synchronized childcare and extracurricular scheduling, overcoming obstacles to earlier high school start times.
Despite the benefits of extra sleep for adolescents, state legislators have not acted on the issue, although neighboring Illinois has recently propsed a House Bill to delay high school start times across the state to at or after 8:45 a.m. California recently became the first state in the nation to require a high school start time of 8:30 a.m. or later, enacted in 2022.
So what to do? Change school start times for adolescents to 8:30 a.m., statewide. A one-time, reasonable shift would allow students the rest time they need, without starting too late. This shift is not to allow students to stay up later, but to allow start times to better conform to students’ circadian rhythms, get adequate sleep, and be more well rested.
An 11 p.m. bedtime is more in line with adolescent circadian rhythms and still reasonable with the onslaught of after school activities. Pair that with an 8:30 a.m. start time, and Missouri would enable students to get 8.5 hours of sleep with a 7:30 a.m. wake up and still have an hour to get to school on time.
Maintaining precedent costs our kids sleep. There is a misalignment between current high school start times and the prioritization of the rest time our students need.
Read more about high school start time poll results:
Read more about all poll results:
https://www.slu.edu/research/research-institute/big-ideas/slu-poll/index.php
MORE FROM THE PRiME BLOGS
For years, President Donald Trump has campaigned on, among other things, his intentions to dissolve the Department of Education. In January 2025, two bills seeking to do just that, were introduced in the House of Representatives (H.R.369 and H.R.899). Just yesterday, Trump signed an executive order that would begin eliminating the federal Department of Education, citing poor test scores as a key justification for the move.