Small delay in school start times=big benefits http://pagingdrgupta.blogs.cnn.com/2010/07/05/small-delay-in-school-start-timesbig-benefits/ At St. George's, more sleep equals better performance http://www.projo.com/education/content/SCHOOL_START_TIME_SLEEP_07-06-10_BTJ3V3C_v18.1687c8e.html National Sleep Foundation http://www.sleepfoundation.org/ Sleep Disorders: Medline Plus http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/sleepdisorders.html Eric Peterson is the head of the St. George's School, a private boarding school in Rhode Island, who had an idea to improve student performance. He thought that it might be useful to have students a bit better rested before they reported for class each morning, so he decided to start the school day at 8:30AM, rather than at 8. The effects were quite dramatic, and a sleep researcher studied his efforts. The researcher in question was Dr. Judith A. Owens, whose daughter was a senior at the school. Over time, Dr. Owens noticed that fewer students were late for class and that overall students felt more motivated and less depressed. Recently, Dr. Owens published her findings in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine journal, and other scholars are taking note. Owens' work seems to mirror other findings. Later school start times have had positive effects in places like Kentucky and Minnesota. In the study Owens found that sleep deprivation is quite harmful to the parts of the brain that need to develop in adolescence and noted, "We have no idea what the long-term consequence is." The first link will take users to a news article from this Monday's Telegraph which reports on both the US sleep study and a similar one from the UK. The second link leads to a post from The Chart blog from CNN, which talks about the study findings. Moving on, the third link leads to an article by The Providence Journal's Felice J. Freyer about Eric Peterson's experience with the modified start time. The fourth link leads to the homepage of the National Sleep Foundation, which has some excellent resources on how to get a good night's sleep. The fifth link will whisk users away to information on sleep disorders, provided courtesy of Medline Plus and other quality partners, including the American Academy of Sleep Medicine.