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Tired students in Salt Lake City School District may soon have a pass to hit their snooze buttons in the morning.
On Friday, parents received a survey asking for feedback on whether the district's high schools should start later in the day.
West High School, East High School and Highland High School begin classes at 7:45 a.m., 45 minutes before the 8:30 a.m. recommendation of the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The district survey asks whether high schools should start later, and it directs parents to indicate their preference among 8 a.m., 8:30 a.m. and 9 a.m.
"The general feeling of the [school] board is that the high schools ought to start later than 8," district Superintendent McKell Withers said. "How much later, they don't know."
Withers said the survey was prompted by a discussion of student health and the impact that school start times have on sleep.
He said the school board is discussing several options and looking for feedback from the community on what conflicts would arise from a shift in schedules.
"Nobody disagrees that teenagers need more sleep," Withers said.
During the 2011-2012 school year, less than 1 in 5 American middle and high school children began their school day at 8:30 a.m. or later, according to a report released in August by the CDC.
Insufficient sleep is common among high school students, the report stated, and correlates with poor school performance, being overweight and the use of alcohol, tobacco and drugs.
"Getting enough sleep is important for students' health, safety and academic performance," CDC epidemiologist Anne Wheaton said in a prepared statement. "Early school start times, however, are preventing many adolescents from getting the sleep they need."
But a later start time in the morning translates into later end times in the afternoon, which can pose a challenge for extracurricular activities and the schedules of working students.
West High School Principal Paul Sagers said activities like choir, debate or athletics regularly require students to miss all or part of their final classes.
By shifting the school schedule, he said, those students would be out of class for longer periods of time.
"If we extend our day," he said, "that just means our kids are going to have to miss that much more."
Sagers said the research is clear that later start times are good for student health. He supports the work of the school board in evaluating class schedules, but he said a single school district changing its start times could potentially put students at a disadvantage.
"If it were statewide, everything would just start a little later and that would work out great," he said.
The board of education for the Davis School District, Utah's second-largest district, is also looking at the issue of insufficient sleep and school start times.
A committee recently presented a staggered model to the board, in which students would schedule their day within 10 class periods.
The board is scheduled to discuss on Tuesday a resolution calling for further investigation of alternative scheduling options.
Twitter: @bjaminwood