CDC infographic teen sleep
Sleep is essential for good health, but teens aren’t getting enough of the good stuff.
CDC
The study that Wheaton and her colleagues worked on surveyed public middle- and high-school start times.The majority of the schools — a little more than 82 percent, on average — started earlier than 8:30 a.m. Louisiana had the earliest average school start time at 7:40 a.m. Alaska had the latest average start time at 8:33 a.m.
In fact, Alaska and North Dakota are the only states to have a majority of schools meet the school-start guidelines recently set by the American Academy of Pediatrics. This professional group includes more than 60,000 doctors who treat or study children. In 2014, the group recommended that middle and high schools start no earlier than 8:30 a.m.