Lower Merion School District will vote later this month on a change that would delay the start of high school from 7:30 to 8:40 AM. The shift is designed to provide teens with more sleep. Maddie Hanna opened her journalistic eye to report the idea in The Philadelphia Inquirer.

The proposed change comes more than three years after the school district first abandoned the idea. It was scotched by concerns about its effect on middle- and elementary-school student schedules.

The local time-shift proposal is the latest effort in a decades-long national movement propelled by a growing number of educational experts. They have been advocating for years that that middle- and high-school students should not start classes earlier than 8:30 AM to accommodate the shift that occurs in adolescents’ biological clocks.

The idea has not yet, however, caught on in the Philadelphia region.

While some districts — Phoenixville and Tredyffrin/Easttown, for example — have already implemented changes, the majority have not.

Logistical complications related to buses, child care, and after-school activities are an ongoing worry.

Read more about this Lower Merion School District proposal in The Philadelphia Inquirer.

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A dailyRX discussion on the relationship between school start times and academic performance.