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Brooke B

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Brooke B.

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Composition 1020

Date

Source Outline Part II

Thesis: Omaha Public Schools should create a later start time for high school students.

 

Sections:

1. Problem Statement

1. You will include all of the pieces from Outline Part I in this assignment as well.  These pieces are not being re-graded, and they do not need to be revised unless you receive specific feedback from your instructor.

   Background
   1. Test Scores
      1. OPS students test scores are, on average, lower than the test scores of other students around Nebraska (Goodsell)
      2. “Starting in seventh grade, the reading gaps [for OPS students] average 44 percentage points” (Goodsell)
   2. School Policies
      1. OPS current start times are 7:40 a.m. and dismissal at 2:45 p.m., both five minutes earlier than before 2011 (Bradon)
      2. Students must have 49 credits to graduate (“Graduation Requirements for High School”).

      3. Supporting Arguments: Keep in mind the basic paragraph guidelines for support. Each subject heading represents a paragraph. Each paragraph should have 1-3 pieces of evidence Use more than one source to build credibility Good Evidence Includes: Statistics Facts (that aren’t debatable) Specific Examples

         “The mission of the Omaha Public Schools is to provide educational opportunities which enable all students to achieve their highest potential.”(“Online School Board Policies”).

2. Causes:
   1. The ‘biological clock’ change in teens happens around ages 11 or 12 and the result is teens won’t feel tired until about 10 P.M. or later while in the morning still feeling tired (Schutte-Rodin).
   2. Researchers studying the sleep of adolescents suggest teens need 9-1/4 hours of sleep a night in order to be completely alert (Schutte-Rodin).
       

2. Supporting Arguments
    

1. Students
   1. Academics
      1. Grades
         1.  “I get out of school at 2:30, chick in with my school newspaper advisor, rush to soccer practice, grab a bite to eat, work from 6:30 to 9:00, and then do homework and study until almost midnight- I’m lucky to get six hours of sleep on school nights.”- Senior (Black).
         2. A later start time of 8:35 A.M. helped South Washington County School District improve grades about a full letter-grade between the first and third period classes (Hoffman).
         3. One school moved tutoring, intervention programs and athletics to 7:35 A.M to coordinate with the later start time for classes (Geiselman).
         4. The need for these programs decreased with the new schedule (Geiselman).
      2. Increased Learning Ability
         1. Teens need 9 ¼ hours of sleep to be completely alert, but most only get 7 (“Teens and School Start Times”).
         2. Starting 30 minutes later, the percentage of students who got 8 hours of sleep or more went from 35.7% to 50% (Danner and Phillips)
         3. Graph of increase sleep for students (Danner and Phillips)
         4. Researchers conclude that the quality of sleep a student gets affects their learning ability. During REM sleep, new facts are processed while the brain is active sorting the days information. More sleep means better absorption of information (Hoffman).
   2. Behavioral Benefits
      1. Minnesota schools pushed back start times and found positive results such as students attending class more often, eating breakfast more regularly, completed homework in class, less trips to the school nurse, and fewer behavioral problems (Schutte-Rodin).
      2. “Students reported less depression when there was a later starting time, and teachers reported that students were more alert and ready for learning. Parents reported that their children were easier to live with because their emotions were more regulated.”- Kyla Wahlstrom, educational researcher from the University of Minnesota (Trudeau).
   3. Less Teen Substance Abuse

      1. Within your outline you need to include a note for where your visual will go.  It needs a parenthetical citation in the outline and the visual should be included at the end of the outline with a note.

         Teens who don’t get enough sleep have the risk of depression which will make them unsatisfied with themselves and school. Tired teens have a greater risk of dropping out and using substances (Black)
      2. Students who don’t get 8 or more hours of sleep are reported to have more symptoms of depression, excessive use of caffeine, and use alcohol and drugs than well rested peers (Hoffman).
   4. Fewer Adolescent Car Crashes
      1. Insert graph of student driver crash rates before and after a later school start time (Danner and Phillips).
      2. Average crash rates in 2 years after changing school start times later decreased 16.5% in the county, while the state crashes increased 7.8% (Danner, Phillips).
2. District

1. More Successful District

1. South Washington County District found that ACT scores went up significantly in two of five schools after a later start time (Hoffman).
2. “Students with a later start time were less likely to drop out or continuously change schools” (Wahlstrom qtd. in Trudeau).
3. With teenage brains developing and hormones changing, teens who got on average 8-9 hours of sleep every night have better learning abilities and are less likely to get into fights, be late to class, or have athletic injuries (Hoffman).
4.  27 school districts have changed to later start times and have been succeeding with better student attendance, less tardy students and better grades (“Education Secretary: Start School Later in Day”).

2. Save Money

1. North Olmsted Superintendent, Mike Zalar, expects pushing back the start time from 7:20 A.M. to 8 A.M. will save the district $100,000 annually (Geisleman).
2. By changing the start times for elementary, middle, and high school for the West Des Moines School District in Iowa, they were able to reduce the amount of buses and save $700,000 yearly (Trudeau).

3. District Obligation

1. In the OPS mission statement, it claims their goal “is to provide educational opportunities which enable all students to achieve their highest potential.”
    
2. Students cannot achieve their highest potential being sleep deprived because of an early school start time to which their bodies are not biologically capable of going to bed at a early enough time to get 9 and ¼ hours of sleep before going to school at 7:40 A.M.
3. "So often in education, we design school systems that work for adults and not for kids," (Arne Duncan qtd. in “Education Secretary: Start School Later in Day”).

III. Solution

1. Start School Later
   1. Action:
      1. Move school start time from 7:40-8:50 am
      2. Move school end time from 2:45-3:35pm
   2. Research:

1. 1. “But at the end of the day, I think its incumbent upon education leaders to not run school systems that work good for buses but that don’t work good for students,”(Arne Duncan qtd. in “Education Secretary: Start School Later in Day”).

B. Change Bussing

1. Action:
   1. Continue bussing students who have been bussed, but change the pickup times to meet the new schedule.
   2. Save money because busses will be less in demand at this time.
2. Research:
   1. St. Lucie County schools have moved start times from 7:30am to 9:30am which saved them 2 million by lowering the number of buses and having the remaining buses do more routes (Bazar).
   2. West Des Moines School District in Iowa saved $700,000 yearly by getting a later start time and reducing the amount of buses used. (Trudeau).

C. Move Some Extracurricular Activities

1. Action:
   1. Maintain all extra curricular programs.
   2. Move programs with short meetings before schools.
   3. Move some tutoring before school.
2. Research:
   1. Tutoring, intervention programs, and athletics were moved to 7:25 A.M. to work with the later start time while not getting rid of these programs (Geiselman).
   2. By having these at 7:00 A.M. students don’t have to miss out on them because school would be getting out later (Geiselman).

IV. Address of the Opposition

1. Opposition #1
   1. Some may argue that it is the parent’s job to get their teens to bed in time.
2. Refutation:

1. The ‘Biological Clock’ is actually 10,000 cells that switch the brain to being awake or going to sleep state. A teenager’s oscillator has different timing of their sleep state which is about an hour later (Black).
2. The biological clock in the brain that is reset to a later time during puberty. This biological clock controls when you feel sleepy and alert. It also controls your body temperature. It even controls when your body releases melatonin and many other important hormones (Schutte-Rodin).

3. Opposition #2
   1. Some might argue that changing school times would cost too much money and would complicate the school transportation system.
4. Refutation

1. St. Lucie County schools have moved start times from 7:30am to 9:30am which saved them 2 million by lowering the number of buses and having the remaining buses do more routes (Bazar).
2. By changing the start times for elementary, middle, and high school for the West Des Moines School District in Iowa, they were able to reduce the amount of buses and save $700,000 yearly (Trudeau).

 

 

 

Visuals:

 

Graph of increased sleep for students

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Graph of teenage car crashes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Works Cited

Bazar, Emily. "School Districts Tweak Schedules to Save Money." USA Today, 24 March 2009, p. 3a. Academic Search Premier, accession no. J0E001995874509.

Black, Susan. "A Wake-Up Call on High-School Starting Times." Education Digest vol. 66, no. 4, Dec. 2000, p. 33. Academic Search Premier, accession number 3857317.

Bradon, Jonathan. “New Start Times Next Year at OPS.” Omaha World Herald, 2014. Accessed 23 Apr. 2014.

Danner, Fred, and Barbara Phillips. “Adolescent Sleep, School Start Times, and Teen Motor Vehicle Crashes.” J Clin Sleep Med, vol. 4, no. 6, 15 Dec 2008, pp. 533-35. National Center for Biotechnology Information, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles
/PMC2603528/.

“Education Secretary: Start School Later in Day.” United Press International, 5 Sept. 2013, 3:00 am, www.upi.com/Education-secretary-Start-school-later-in-day/92611378364400/.

Geiselman, Bruce. “North Olmsted Schools Push Back Controversial 7:20 A.M. Start Times.” Cleveland, Advance Ohio, 20 April 2014, 7:39 pm. www.cleveland.com/north-olmsted/index.ssf/2014/04/north_olmsted_schools_push_bac_1.html.

Goodsell, Paul. “Achievement Gap Still Tests OPS.” Omaha World Herald, 10 Mar. 2013, www.omaha.com/news/achievement-gap-still-tests-ops/article_1a93f175-1f77-5309-ae33-a7868450b2a7.html

“Graduation Requirements for High School.” Omaha Public Schools, 2012. Accessed 24 April 2014.

Hoffman, Jan. “To Keep Teenagers Alert, Schools Start to Let Them Sleep In.” New York Times, 14 Mar. 2014, 1:20 p.m., well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/03/13/to-keep-teenagers-alert-schools-let-them-sleep-in/?_r=0

“Online School Board Policies.” Omaha Public Schools, 2012, www.nasbonline.org/
OnlinePolicyManuals/Policy/Index/5143.

Shutte-Rodin, Sharon. “Teens and School Start Times.” Your Sleep, American Academy of Sleep Medicine, 2010. Accessed 23 Apr. 2014.

Swan, Scott. “Schools Seeing Positive Results From Later Start Time for Teens.” WTHR, 15 Apr. 2014, www.wthr.com/article/schools-seeing-positive-results-from-later-start-time-for-teens.

Trudeau, Michelle. “High Schools Starting Later to Help Sleepy Teens.” National Public Radio, morning ed. 18 Jan. 2007, 12:30 a.m., www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?
storyId=6896471.

 

 

 

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