Joint Statement on Later School Start Times

The undersigned specialists in sleep medicine and professional health organizations collectively express our support for later school start times for adolescents.

The evidence is clear. Later school start times, in alignment with adolescence sleep schedules, show significant results for both individual students and the community at large:

• Improved driver safety.
• Improved alertness to facilitate peak academic performance.
• Reduced anxiety and depression.
• Less risk-taking behavior (i.e. drug and alcohol use, smoking)
• Less tardiness and school absences to foster improved opportunities for learning.

The objective of this statement is to support the following 2018 legislation put forth by the Minnesota Sleep Society:

• To allow adolescents to obtain sufficient sleep at a time that is right for their bodies on school nights, all secondary students will have a start time no earlier than 8:30 am.
• To avoid school districts inadvertently transferring sleep deprivation to younger children when reorganizing district transportation, all elementary schools will have a bus pick-up time no earlier than 7:00 am.
• These mandated times will not take effect until the 2021-2022 sch­­ool year, to allow sufficient time for institutional change at the district level.

---

Sleep Medicine Specialists Julie Baughn – MD Katherine Beresford – MD Jagdeep Bijwadia – MD Keith Cavanaugh – MD Julie Dahl – APRN, CNP Piyush Das – MD Deanna Diebold – MD Chad Eiken – RPSGT Sarah Emery – APRN, CNP Jeff Forslund – DDS John Garcia – MD Michael Howell – MD Con Iber – MD Muna Ifran – MD Karen Johnson – APRN, CNP Louis Kazaglis – MD Melissa King Briggs – MD Robin Lloyd – MD Meghna Mansukhani – MD Wendy Meyers – APRN, CNP Catalina Morarasu – DDS Tim Morgenthaler – MD Jonathan Parker – DDS Troy Payne – MD Deb Scattarelli – APRN, CNP Michael Schmitz – PsyD, LP Rodolfo Soca – MD Andrew Stiehm – MD Kent Svee – MD Andrew Vaaler – MD Ranji Varghese – MD Yosef Wexler – MD

Health Professional Organizations Minnesota Sleep Society Julie Dahl, APRN, CNP – President Minnesota Medical Association Robert K. Meiches, MD – Chief Executive Officer NAMI Minnesota (National Alliance on Mental Illness) Sue Abderholden, MPH – Executive Director