Dearborn (Mich.) district will offer later high school starts

From The Detroit News: The Dearborn (Mich.) district will launch a trial this fall allowing 10th-, 11th-, and 12th-graders to start the school day an hour later if they choose--at 8:25 a.m. rather than 7:20. Classes now get out at 2:15 p.m.; under the new trial, students would get out at 3:20. The flexible start time was approved by the school board after years of study and debate. It was proposed by a group of parents who said research shows teens are biologically programmed to go to bed later and wake up later.

RELATED...from The Washington Post: The Fairfax County (Va.) school board is reopening a long-simmering debate over whether to start high school classes later in the morning so students can get more sleep. Classes in Fairfax begin as early as 7:20 a.m., and school buses begin picking up students before 6 a.m. Critics of the current schedule contend that forcing teenagers to wake up (and function) before dawn runs counter to their natural body clocks and is detrimental to their academic performance and mental and physical health.