We all fear the dreaded blaring of the alarm clock each morning. It jolts us away from sleep for another long day of work, but often it feels we don’t truly wake up until hours afterward, or perhaps even the rest of the day.

Concerns of getting better sleep are on the minds of many students and staff alike, at RHS and other schools across the nation.

Recently, the district has been considering enacting later school start times, and have posted information on their website. The options they have narrowed down to include keeping start times the same, or moving them back half an hour for high school students. The question of changing elementary and middle school start times has been revoked.

This discussion springs from numerous studies which indicate the vitality of a good night’s sleep in correlation with students learning.

As it turns out, adolescents around the high school age experience a shift in their circadian rhythm, or a ¨sleep wake phase delay.” This means that teenagers have a tendency to both wake up and go to sleep later compared to adults and children.

Being forced to keep an early schedule does take its toll on students however, and teachers have noticed.

When asked about the productivity of his classes, english teacher Mr. Tim Hurrianko observed that the time of day is often vital to how much his students get done. For most morning classes, he said, “They looked like zombies in a coma!”

With this observation, shifting school an hour back to accommodate students sleeping needs sounds like a desired transition that would enable soaring success among all students.

However, this is not entirely the case.

For many dedicated students and athletes, pushing school back by an hour simply means even later homework grinds than before.

“I don’t go to sleep until my homework’s done. I can’t sleep knowing I have homework to do,” says Junior Justin Ferraro, who juggles two sports and AP classes.

But even if you are one of those people willing to wake up early to finish work, there are some after school activities which simply can’t be shifted from their long afternoons to an early morning.

For instance, senior Justin Johnson emphatically stated, “It would destroy my work schedule.”

Not to mention, after school competitions or sporting events would not change times just to accommodate a single high school’s new schedule. The result may force students to miss even more class time than before to attend those same far-away competitions.

Finally, scheduling and financial concerns may pose an obstacle to some families.

In order to avoid conflict with elementary and middle school bus schedules, “We would have to pay an estimated $820,000 for four new busses and four new drivers, and then an additional $100,000 each subsequent year,”according to the RUSD informational power point.

While the later start schedule may work better for some than others, it is clear that everyone will feel at least some impact.

Unfortunately, most ramifications of a later start would lead to some degree of inconvenience, largely making the decision a choice of whether or not that inconvenience is worth the health benefits it may pose to high school students.