hich are perfectly understandable, and fears which lead people to say, ‘Don’t change, because I had to jump through hoops to make my life work, and now you’re going to change my life,’” Snider said.
Still, delaying school start times doesn’t always mean that kids will get more sleep. Students may just stay up later, according to a study published this year in the journal Sleep. The efforts can also end up being costly. In 2015, Fairfax County spent $5 million to delay school start times nearly an hour, according to the Capital Gazette.
But advocates argue that the benefits outweigh the costs.
“Many people are for this change, but they might say it’s impossible to do, they’re going to tell you it’s too expensive,” said Snider. “We do have so many success stories. The real issue isn’t those things. It’s more fear of change and failure of imagination, because people don’t realize that when you fix a problem, there’s not one way to do it.”