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Editorial: San Diego leads on later school start times. Now others should follow.

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It’s a given that the health of America’s children should be promoted and protected by any reasonable means. No, this is not an editorial about guns and school safety, an issue that after Friday’s deadly shooting in Santa Fe, Texas, is again roiling the nation and putting a spotlight on do-nothing politicians. This editorial is about school start times and officials who are actually doing something to help.

It’s now been a quarter-century since research firmly established how early school start times are awful for adolescents and teens. A 2014 American Academy of Pediatrics study found that big majorities of middle and high school students didn’t get the 8.5 to 9.5 hours recommended by health experts and were more likely as a result to be depressed, overweight and struggling in school, and to get into automobile accidents. This is why the world’s leading sleep expert, Stanford’s William C. Dement, says many students are “walking zombies trying to cope with the stresses of school, work and social activities that may literally be putting their lives in peril.”

This backdrop is why the San Diego Unified School District deserves high praise for taking steps to have all its schools start no earlier than 8:30 a.m. by 2020, as reported by NBC 7 San Diego. This will be an imposition for some teachers and other district employees and for many parents. But if employers care about their community, they should show as much flexibility as they can in dealing with those who have to start work later as a result.

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Before the Legislature rejected a bill last year requiring middle and high schools statewide to start no earlier than 8:30 a.m., one lawmaker mocked the bill’s “one-size-fits-all approach” as “kind of ridiculous.” To San Diego school administrators’ credit, each school will study when they’ll start and how’ll they’ll transition to the new start time over the next two years. If the state won’t lead, let city schools.

Twitter: @sdutIdeas

Facebook: San Diego Union-Tribune Ideas & Opinion

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