1 . Students to get more sleep

When your alarm clock rings and you drag yourself out of bed, you probably wonder: Why on Earth does school have to start so early?     1    

A law in California, passed on Oct 13, requires that public middle schools begin classes no earlier than 8:00 am and that high schools start no earlier than 8:30 am. The law will go into effect by July 1, 2022. Starting school at 8:00 or 8:30 in the morning may not sound like too big of a change.     2    

“The effect of that one hour is something they will be feeling as 40-year-old adults,” Sumit Bhargava, a sleep expert at Stanford University, told The New York Times.     3    

Some might say that urging students to go to bed earlier could have been a much easier solution than changing the school timetable across an entire state. But according to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, teenagers go through biological changes when they enter adolescence.     4     So when school starts at 8:00 or earlier, they can hardly get the ideal 8.5 — 9.5 hours of sleep that experts suggest they need to do their best in the daytime.

    5     In the short run, students’ school performances should improve immediately. Kyla Wahlstrom, a researcher, found that students who have enough sleep are more alert in class and get better grades. This is why when the new law came out, its author, Anthony Portantino, said, “Generations of children will come to appreciate this historic day and our governor for taking brave action.”