Samarth Mannikeri, a Pennsbury High School junior, has joined the debate on school start times while advocating for a time management alternative in an opinion piece for Bucks County Courier Times.

Mannikeri wrote that wanting to sleep in on school days has nothing to do with laziness or lack of ambition. Pre-teens start to see their sleep cycles change as they move through adolescence due to how their bodies release melatonin.

Several studies have shown that teens cannot fully escape their melatonin-induced sleep before 8 a.m., which means that moving the start times later for high schoolers would be more beneficial as inadequate sleep inhibits learning and reduces test performance.

However the arguments against having later school start times include the inability of parents to drop off their kids at school and make it to work in time. Another is transportation logistics, as delayed school start times would significantly affect school bus schedules.

As an alternative, Mannikeri believes that school districts should invest in better time-management lessons for students. This would teach them how to better manage a proper sleep schedule, while school districts would get better results and performance.

Read the entire take in the Bucks County Courier Times.