Read the essay. Then answer the questions.

Why Our School Should Start Later

1. Last spring our student council asked every sixth-grade homeroom how much sleep students were getting on a school night.
2. The results surprised even the teachers who had helped us write the questions.
3. Almost half of the students we surveyed reported fewer than seven hours.
4. Doctors who study adolescent sleep says that middle school students need nine or ten hours.
5. Our first bell rings at 8:00, which means that many of us are awake by half past six.
6. When I asked my older sister about her high school, she told me that her classes begin at 8:30.
7. She has more energy now than she did two years ago, and her grades have improved as well.
8. Some people argue that a later start would interfere with after-school sports and with the jobs that older students hold.
9. That is a fair concern, and it deserves a real answer rather than a quick dismissal.
10. Districts that have already moved their start times report that attendance improved and that number of accidents involving teenage drivers went down.
11. If the evidence is this strong, our school board should at least agree to study the question.