South students are looking forward to the start of winter break this week not so much for the holidays, but as a way to catch up on sleep.

"I’ll be sleeping all week," said junior Paulina Tarr.

On Tuesday, Tarr said she had stayed up until 3 a.m. that morning to finish an essay. It’s a common practice, she said.

"Fridays are for sleep," Tarr said. "I come home from school and basically go right to bed."

Tarr’s friend Maddie Paul, also a junior, said she’d be sleeping the break away, too. "I get about six hours’ sleep a night."

The general assumption is that students are missing valuable snooze hours because of social-media addictions, but that’s not always the case, students say. They say they are losing sleep due to homework, extracurricular activities and early school start times.

"Sometimes I feel like I want to cry," junior Hailee Whitesel said. "I feel like colleges and parents expect students to have a job, volunteer, have 17 leadership positions, participate in sports and hold a 4.0 GPA while also maintaining a healthy life."

Students begin classes at 7:20 a.m. each morning at Nashua South. Dr. Larry Learner, of Merrimack Pediatrics, says it’s too early.

"The majority of teens need nine to 9½ hours of sleep per night … teens are not tired until 11 p.m. and are not fully awake until 7:30-8a.m.," he said.

Since students have to get up every morning to prepare for the 7:20 start, they would have to go to bed at 9 p.m. the night before to get a sufficient amount of sleep for the next day.

"Many studies suggest that a majority of teens are chronically sleep-deprived," Learner said.

Teachers agree. NHSS science teacher Jen Burnette said, "The kids are like zombies in the morning, but wild monkeys in the afternoon." The majority of teachers said that students are tired and unresponsive in the early morning.

Joel Iwaskiewicz, an English teacher at NHSS, agreed and said, "First-block students seemed to resemble zombies … I would definitely endorse a (school start-time) delay."

NHSS student and varsity football player Justin Gray said, "At times, I feel like my lack of sleep causes a drop in the quality of both my schoolwork and my performance on the field … I feel that way until the end of first block."

When asked what time he gets to bed each night, Gray answered, "around 11:15 p.m. each night." He says this is due to schoolwork that is required in order to do well in his classes.

"My children are super tired," said Alicia McNichols, Whitesel’s mom. Although many people think we should start the day later, she is one of the few individuals who does not agree. "Later start times won’t help. It will simply shift the teen-tired syndrome to the afternoon," McNichols said.

According to Learner, a student’s daily schedule should begin at 8:30 a.m. and include a "good amount" of daily exercise and healthy food. He also mentioned that there should be room in a student’s schedule for extracurricular activities.

Alyssa Gillin and Chris Guarino are juniors at Nashua High School South.

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