By Leah Gershgorin ’27, Commentary Editor

My five-year-old sister loves to sleep in. She was known for being “the late girl” at her preschool; on the weekends, my family keeps quiet in the mornings so she can get her beauty sleep. Recently, she started kindergarten, so her sleeping habits were interrupted by my dad’s “get ready for school” wake-up call at 7 a.m. On her first day of school, she looked like she wanted to dim the sun, magic her backpack into a pillow, and fall asleep right on the driveway. That’s when I realized: I probably look like that every morning. I guess I’ve just been too tired to notice, thanks to Newark Academy’s 8:10 a.m. start time.

Most students try to arrive at school by 8 a.m. to have a few minutes to talk to their friends and get to class with some time to spare. But every now and then, we find ourselves scrambling to open our lockers at 8:08 a.m. and rushing down the hallways, hoping that the bell will kindly wait a few seconds longer before ringing.

The days I arrive at NA with barely three minutes before class begins are the days I snooze my alarm three times and roll out of bed with barely enough energy to brush my teeth. The only thought my brain can muster is that getting up this early cannot be healthy.

As it turns out, science agrees. According to the American Psychological Association, “during puberty, youth undergo a shift in their circadian clocks that makes it harder for them to fall asleep until later in the night.” Teenagers need at least eight to ten hours of sleep a night, but very few meet the standard, since most wake up at least an hour before the start of school.

A study conducted in 2014 by the American Academy of Pediatrics found that, “compared with students whose schools started between 8 a.m. and 8:29 a.m., those in schools starting between 8:30 a.m. and 8:59 a.m. had longer sleep duration, less negative mood, and better developmental outcomes including socioemotional, cognitive, behavioral, and physical health.”

While the research makes a strong case for later start times, I think schools could go even further. What if sports and other extracurricular activities ran from 9:30 a.m. to around 11:30 a.m., and school began afterwards? Classes would then run for an hour each, assuming there were four periods throughout the day as well as an hour-long NA block. Upper School students who play sports at NA currently finish at 5:30 p.m., but with this new schedule, everyone would be out by 5 p.m., free to do homework or whatever else they please. This seems fairly plausible, right?

Unfortunately, no. Upper School Principal Dr. Atwell helped me realize that. While she acknowledges the benefits of later start times, she explains that we are “confronted with the reality that extracurricular activity start times are not controlled by the school itself, such as Essex County sports tournaments, and in order to ensure enough hours in the school day, we need to start earlier.”

So, for now, we should be grateful that our new schedule only requires us to complete homework for four classes, compared to five or, in some cases, even six. Even if our mornings remain painfully early, the conversation around start times is a reminder that student well-being deserves to be at the center of how schools shape their schedules—and Newark Academy is on the right track.