By Tribune Content Agency
Eileen Gaspar estimates that her high school daughter gets four to five hours of sleep a night.
Her daughter goes to Olympian High in Chula Vista, where school starts at 7:30 a.m., so she’s out the door each morning by 6:45 a.m. But she has cheerleading practice every evening until about 7 p.m., and once she gets home, she has to shower, eat dinner then stay up late doing homework.
“Kids stay up so late now and doing homework, and then they have to wake up early to go to school,” Gaspar said. “They don’t get that eight-hour rest that they really need.”
Lawmakers recently passed a bill that would force schools to start later, which some hope will address this lack-of-sleep problem that Gaspar sees in her daughter.
Source: California middle and high schools would start no earlier than 8:30 a.m. under bill sent to governor