By Maddie Jenkins
Staff Writer
Sleep is very important to teens in high school these days, especially with more homework hours and sports that can be stressful. Although every student should be getting 8 to 10 hours of sleep each night to properly function, most students only get 6 to 7.

“A lot of kids are just over-scheduled,” said Guidance Counselor Heidi Hider, “I feel like there’s a lot of spoken or unspoken pressure to take a really hard schedule here and I think sometimes it’s to the detriment of people’s well-being, sleep included.”

This unfortunate pressure is supported by the wide variety of honors and AP courses that students at WA are encouraged to take.

“The amount of homework that’s given to students is sometimes excessive, I believe. Homework in mostly all classes adds to the amount of work they do at night, which is taking away from the time that they will sleep at night,” said wellness teacher Scott Brown.

Studies have shown that sleep is extremely important, especially for teens, as they are still growing and learning new things.

School nurses Joan Mitchell and Kathy Bourdeau believe a lack of sleep effects almost everyone.

“[Sleep deprivation] effects your immune system,” Mitchell said.

Bourdeau added, “It snowballs into a stomach ache, [or] a headache.”

In order to add an extra hour or two to their sleep schedule, Bourdeau recommends that students put away technology when they go to bed, because their phones are keeping their brain active and engaged.

At Westford Academy, the first class starts at 7:35 am, and buses pick students up as early as 6:30 am. Staff members had varied opinions on starting school at a later time.

“From a biological standpoint, for teenagers, I think [a later start time] would be better,” Hider said.

Already, many school districts have acted in accordance with this idea, and have made their school’s start time later.

“I see a few districts starting the school day later for the [students] but you just wonder if that’s just going to curve the pattern to, ‘now I can sleep until 8 [am], so I’m going to stay up until 2 [pm] instead of 12 [pm].’ It might not change. But we will see,” said Bourdeau.