My life changed in fall 2011 when WhiteHouse.gov started an online petition site promising a response from the President for 5,000 signatures in 30 days.
As a 53-year-old mother of three nearly-grown children, I had abandoned hope that my local high school's 7:17 a.m. bell time would change before my last child graduated. Even so, I figured a month spent promoting this petition might get the issue on the national radar.
Alas, technical glitches kept sufficient people from signing. But the same day the petition disappeared into cyberspace I started getting calls from national media, plus emails from people all over the country working on this same issue in isolation.
I also got an email from Maribel Cabrera, a local parent and occasional blogger with an engineering background, urging me to seize the momentum. We co-founded Start School Later, starting a new petition, a website, and two Twitter accounts.
Thus Start School Later was born. Not only had the science supporting change become irrefutable, but new social media empowered an unfunded grassroots group to have widespread reach and impact.
Since 2011 we’ve become a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) with 166 chapters in 34 U.S. states, DC, and worldwide; 50 coalition partners, national media attention, a Huffington Post video with 13-million+ views, thousands of donated volunteer hours, and successful state legislation. We've collaborated with academic, non-profit, and other health advocacy organizations to develop sleep education materials and have run two national conferences on teen sleep and school start time change.
A Multi-Level, Multi-Pronged Approach
After watching waves of local reform efforts rise and fall, I realized that politics, money, and myth often overrode the best interests of students, teachers, and communities. Collective action on a national scale (and someone sticking to the issue beyond their own children)—including a mechanism to create institutional memory—would be required to address a public health problem misconstrued as a local education issue.
Perhaps this seems like overkill for an issue that, on the surface, seems relatively trivial compared to other pressing issues facing youth and families. The idea of needing a national movement even seemed like overkill to Maribel, whose older two children were still in elementary school and whose youngest child was just two years old (he joined us at our earliest meetings.)
This changed quickly. The stories told and research shared at the very first Start School Later meetings around Maribel’s kitchen table made it clear that the time schools require students to be in class has enormous implications for just about any aspect of adolescent growth, development, health, safety, learning, and performance you can name. We soon learned that it also has enormous implications for issues that anyone should care about regardless of whether they are, have, or even know an adolescent, including road safety, social justice, and the economy.
After watching waves of local reform efforts rise and fall, I realized that politics, money, and myth often overrode the best interests of students, teachers, and communities. Collective action on a national scale (and someone sticking to the issue beyond their own children) would be required to address a public health problem misconstrued as a local education issue.
The research supporting a return to later bell times is so compelling that the numerous health and education organizations have joined the American Academy of Pediatrics in calling for an end to middle and high school classes before 8:30 a.m. The true obstacle was not research, nor—contrary to common claims by school leaders who have understandable reasons for avoiding change if at all possible—was it cost or other logistical problems. It was political will.
If ensuring safe, healthy school start times was anything like other social movements, we would likely need a sustained, multisectoral, and multilevel national effort effort to build that will.
Where We’ve Been and Where We’re Going
Today, in no small part due to the efforts of Start School Later, increasingly unified, energized, and empowered community advocates and school leaders across the United States who were previously operating in isolation, providing resources and support that have already resulted in healthier bell times in hundreds of school districts, including the entire state of California, and the introduction of legislation into 28 U.S. states, with at least 12 signed into law.
Other significant accomplishments include:
Developing and disseminating sleep education materials, including a toolkits for school administrators and classroom teachers; Sleep 101, an award-winning, interactive, online program now being implemented at colleges and secondary schools around the nation; and Let’s Sleep!, a free online resources providing practical advice about teen sleep for students, parents, teachers, administrators, and clinicians.
Running two national conference and regional implementation workshops on adolescent sleep and school start times, bringing together sleep scientists, school leaders, teachers, counselors, policymakers, health professionals, economists, and community advocates.
Offering free webinars to raise awareness about adolescent sleep health to health care providers, educators, and community advocates
Joining with coalition partners to urge U.S. Congress and federal agencies to support sleep health and evidence-based school start times in Washington D.C.
In coming years, we hope to develop and disseminate additional online resources; grow and better support our chapter network; market and manage Sleep 101 and customize it for different end users (e.g., driver education programs); conduct more workshops and webinars for school leaders; and build more connections between the research, health, education, policy, and advocacy communities (including future national conferences).
Since we received 501(c)(3) status in 2014, we've experienced tremendous growth. We're proud of the visibility and impact accomplished on all-volunteer energy, talent, and passion. But we're at a transition point, a critical one for many small nonprofits.
To realize these goals and honor growing commitments, our greatest need is to ensure scalable growth as we transform a grassroots coalition that literally started around a kitchen table into a sustainable organization.
Since we received 501(c)(3) status in 2014, we've experienced tremendous growth. We're proud of the visibility and impact accomplished on all-volunteer energy, talent, and passion. But we're at a transition point, a critical one for many small nonprofits.
We still rely entirely on volunteers even at the national staff level to fulfill basic operations such as bookkeeping and accounting, website maintenance, administration, public communications, chapter support, donor relations, grant-writing, and outreach.
Many volunteers, myself included, have undertaken these tasks at great personal sacrifice to families, careers, income, and, sometimes (sadly) health. As our reach, visibility, and responsibilities grow, this model is not sustainable.
Through more formal collaborations and dedicated fundraising, we hope to take our work to the next level by finding sustainable ways to retain the talent and passion that have brought us to this point so that we can continue working for the health, safety, and wellbeing of children, families, and communities.
Hi Tara, it’s Tracey from Maine. You are still my hero! We have made the change and have looked back. Thank you for all of the advocacy you have done and I am so glad to have been a part of it.