MCCPTA On-Line School Bell Time Resources

University of Minnesota's College of Education and Human Development and the CAREI Center publish the results of their school start time study from 1998-2000, at carei.coled.umn.edu/Programs/time/start_time/default.html. Also included at the site are pointers to related sites (carei.coled.umn.edu/Programs/time/start_time/Other/resources.html). In addition to the study from the University of Minnesota, another study shows a significant difference in the GPAs of those students allowed to sleep later in the morning versus those those who get up early. An abstract of the study, by the Department of Psychiatry, University of California San Diego, is available on-line at bisleep.medsch.ucla.edu/WFSRS/abstracts/htdocs/ab100.html.

WAKE UP! is a voluntary group of parents, students and teachers in Montgomery County working to prevent teenage sleep deprivation and its consequences through educating the public and changing the scheduling of the school day.They are involved in an effort to develop pilot projects at several high schools to institute a "Flex Schedule"-an option for students to attend school from 2nd to 8th period. That is, students who choose to participate in the pilot would go to school from 8:23 to about 3:00 rather than 7:25 to 2:10. A small "Flex Schedule" program will be piloted at Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School in the fall of 2002; they are looking for other schools that are interested in testing the concept.

The Washington Post Health section, Sept 21, 1999, ran an article titled "Workshop Takes Pulse of Sleepy Teens," which reported a National Academy of Science workshop on sleep research.