Starting school later is healthier for Idaho’s students | Opinion

As a pediatrician and the mother of two children educated in the Boise School District, I have long believed that junior high and high school should start at 8:30 a.m. or later. I am one of 139 medical providers who recently signed a letter to the district on this issue.

This is not a matter of convenience or preference. It is a matter of biology, health and public safety.

Adolescents need eight to 10 hours of sleep each night to support healthy brain and body development, emotional regulation and learning. During puberty, the brain undergoes a shift in circadian rhythm that delays the release of melatonin, the body’s sleep hormone. As a result, teenagers are biologically wired to fall asleep several hours later than younger children. This is not the result of poor time management, lack of discipline or a failure of parenting. It is typical adolescent development.

When school starts at 7:45, we are asking teenage brains to wake up after too little sleep and learn during what is, for them, the physiological equivalent of the middle of the night. Decades of research show clear consequences: impaired attention and memory, weakened emotional regulation, and increased vulnerability to anxiety and depression.

A recent study using data from the National Youth Risk Behavior Survey found that adolescent sleep deprivation has worsened significantly over the past two decades. By 2023, only one in four high school students reported getting the recommended eight or more hours of sleep on school nights and the percentage of teens sleeping five or fewer hours rose to 23%. Importantly, the study found that this decline was not attributable to screen time, social media, video games or substance use. In other words, the problem is not simply teen behavior.

In Idaho, we see similar patterns. The 2025 Boise Youth Wellbeing Survey found that adequate sleep is one of the strongest protective factors against youth depression, and yet more than half of students are getting less than eight hours of nightly sleep. Among students reporting eight or more hours of sleep, 7% had moderate to severe depression symptoms compared to 24% of those getting less than eight hours. In a community that has felt the weight of teen depression and suicide, these findings are impossible to ignore.

The consequences extend beyond mental health. Motor vehicle crashes remain a leading cause of death for Idaho teens, and the American Academy of Sleep Medicine reports that delaying start times by just one hour can reduce teen crash rates by up to 20 percent.

This is not a problem we can simply parent our way out of. While healthy sleep habits matter, individual behavior changes alone cannot overcome early school schedules that conflict with adolescent biology. Meaningful improvement requires a system-level solution.

There are real logistical challenges to making this change. Transportation costs, scheduling, extracurricular activities and childcare all deserve careful planning. But focusing on barriers first risks overshadowing the reason for change. A feasibility study commissioned by the Boise School District and conducted by the University of Washington concluded that the benefits of later start times outweigh the challenges and recommended the district move forward.

Many communities — Bend, Fort Collins, Cherry Creek, Seattle, Portland and Vancouver — have faced similar concerns and made the shift. They did so because the evidence warranted it. Schools that start later consistently see longer sleep duration, better attendance, stronger academic engagement, improved mental health and fewer behavioral problems.

There are countless forces shaping our teenagers’ wellbeing that we cannot control. School start time is different. This is a public health problem our community can address. Our kids are telling us something. I am asking the Boise School District — and all of us — to listen.

Dr. Elsa Lee is a pediatrician in the Treasure Valley and the mother of two children educated in the Boise School District.