{"id":452409,"date":"2026-09-03T18:32:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-03T18:32:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/452409\/"},"modified":"2026-09-03T18:32:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T18:32:08","slug":"do-later-school-start-times-help-california-students-heres-what-new-study-says-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/452409\/","title":{"rendered":"Do later school start times help California students? Here\u2019s what new study says"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Vani Sanganeria<\/a>, EdSource<\/p>\n

California\u2019s mandate requiring later start times for middle and high schools is already yielding results, with students sleeping more, reporting better mental health and scoring higher math and English scores, according to a new study.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The new working\u00a0paper<\/a>\u00a0from the National Bureau of Economic Research examines the effects of Senate Bill 328, California\u2019s statewide mandate for later school start times. The law, which went into effect in 2022, requires most middle schools to start no earlier than 8 a.m. and high schools no earlier than 8:30 a.m.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The study found that the new law increased the share of students sleeping at least eight hours per night by 13%, meeting the minimum recommended for adolescents by\u00a0health experts<\/a>. The largest jump was among boys.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The study shows that \u201crest and sleep are incredibly important in the function of schools,\u201d said Osea Giuntella, an author of the report. Although the short-term increase in sleep is moderate, it has led to significant improvements in mental health and academic outcomes, he said.<\/p>\n

Giuntella, a University of Pittsburgh researcher who studies sleep and economics, said the study\u2019s first-year results are consistent with previous research linking better sleep to improved\u00a0student well-being and academic performance. The study used changes in teachers\u2019 commute arrival times from the American Community Survey as a proxy for later school start times, comparing sleep and mental health data before and after SB 328 took effect in the 2022-2023 school year and tracking academic gains from 2022 through 2025.<\/p>\n

Gains in sleep, mental health, English and math\u00a0<\/p>\n

Students reported experiencing better mental health since schools shifted to later start times, with boys reporting the largest reductions in sadness, hopelessness and suicidal ideation, and Hispanic students reporting the biggest drop in difficulties concentrating.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Terra Ziporyn, executive director at nonprofit Start Schools Later and longtime advocate of later school start times, said SB 328 was a key part of California\u2019s response to what schools have described as a student mental health crisis.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first step in addressing student mental health problems is to not create them in the first place,\u201d Ziporyn said. \u201cYou can get a lot of counselors, but systematically depriving an entire adolescent population of adequate sleep is a surefire way to hurt their mental health.\u201d<\/p>\n

The study also found significant improvements in academic achievement, with eighth grade students making measurable gains in math and English, particularly among Hispanic and economically disadvantaged students.<\/p>\n

Giuntella, the study\u2019s author, said the improvement in scores was likely \u201clargely driven by the change in sleep\u201d based on comparable\u00a0studies<\/a>\u00a0where increased sleep led to higher GPAs. That\u2019s also why Hispanic students, who are already less likely to get adequate sleep than white students due to lower family income and family and work responsibilities, improved their math and English scores the most, Giuntella said.<\/p>\n

Parents struggle with new schedules<\/p>\n

The state mandate is the only one in the nation.<\/p>\n

\u201cCalifornia set a huge precedent for the whole nation by saying, \u2018We cannot leave what is essentially a public health decision in the hands of local districts,\u2019 \u201d Ziproyn said. \u201cIt\u2019s not just a negotiable school budget item that you trade off against anything else.\u201d<\/p>\n

But some parents have said later start times complicate work commutes, push back sports and extracurricular activities and lead to some students simply pushing back the time they go to bed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The study found that sports and extracurricular activities did start later after the change to later start times, but the changes were \u201cmarginal and not statistically significant,\u201d Giuntella said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd it\u2019s true that, yes, students may even go to bed a little later than they were, but they are definitely sleeping in more in the morning,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Guintella described later start times as just \u201cone institutional factor\u201d that may help address a complex sleep-deprivation problem, pointing to issues like the rise in nighttime screen use.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018Too hard and too expensive\u2019 for some districts<\/p>\n

Some school districts found the transition to later school start times \u201ctoo hard and too expensive,\u201d Ziporyn said. Ziporyn said district administrators could have received more guidance from the state Department of Education to explain the benefits of later start times, and involve families in finding solutions to logistical problems.<\/p>\n

\u201c(Schools) have to fully understand why this is being done and communicate it with confidence to the community that they\u2019re doing the right thing for kids,\u201d Ziporyn said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

San Francisco Unified, for example, worked with operations experts at the Yale School of Management, Georgia Tech University and Northwestern University to redesign their bus routes in response to the change. With more than 120 schools and 18 different start times, the district generated about 1,000 new feasible bus schedules, which ended up saving the district about $5 million and with a majority of families and staff members satisfied with the transition to later start times, according to a report by\u00a0Yale Insights.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

But most schools in California did not have access to dedicated consultants to ease the transition, Ziporyn said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cCalifornia could have improved making these resources more readily available to the districts,\u201d Ziporyn said. \u201cBuilt into the law was that there was supposed to be help from the state Department of Education about getting this done, and building that community buy-in is part of it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Giuntella said the state can improve its implementation of SB 328 by collecting statewide data on later school start times to \u201cassess the impact of the reform.\u201d In the meantime, schools can take from the study that later start times are \u201ceffective and powerful tools\u201d for student outcomes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis happens often with some shock to individual and families\u2019 habits, and so it also requires the ability to navigate this transition in a way that doesn\u2019t backfire,\u201d Giuntella said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Vani Sanganeria, EdSource California\u2019s mandate requiring later start times for middle and high schools is already yielding…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":452410,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[701,702,178779,143,145,144],"class_list":["post-452409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-capital-public-radio","tag-cpr","tag-do-later-school-start-times-help-california-students-heres-what-new-study-says","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=452409"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452409\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/452410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=452409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=452409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=452409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}