According to sleepfoundation.org, teenagers need to have at least 8 to 10 hours of sleep each night to function properly, yet a study showed that only 14.4 percent of high schools started at 8:30 a.m. or later. Among the states that did not have one school that began at 8:30 a.m. or later was Hawaii.

Furthermore, the Hawaii State Department of Education is extending the time from a minimum of 990 student hours to 1,080 student hours beginning in the 2016-2017 school year with  Act 167. This only includes the minimum hours, so schools can add more time.

Registrar Osa Tui said this school year the requirement transitioned from 990 student instructional hours to 990 student hours. Tiger Time was eliminated on Fridays.  

Act 167 defines student instructional hours as the amount of time students are spending with educational activities and disregards lunch, recess or passing time.

Altering school times, however, is not easy according to U.S. News.  Bus schedules must fit to the school schedule and additionally after-school activities will have to change their times.

With the minimum requirement of hours already established and this year’s updated schedule, several McKinley High students already feel sleep deprived.

“There’s not enough room in the day to do after school activities, homework and 8 hours of sleep,” junior Bridget Barroga said.

“I just feel dead,” senior Valma Jibewemal said.

“I feel dead depending on the day,” senior Madison Pimentel said.

The National Sleep Foundation says that teenagers tend to have irregular sleep patterns throughout the week and sleep late on the weekends which can affect their biological clocks and damage the quality of their sleep.

Furthermore, CNN  said that hitting the snooze button repeatedly will add even more damage to a teen’s sleep schedule by breaking the quality of the additional sleep. The results can include grogginess and poor performance.

According to a 2014-2015 school year tardy-chart shared with teachers, the number of tardies was significantly higher in periods 1 and 2. The effect of not obtaining enough sleep could be the cause of the 24,511 tardies.

Click here to view the 2014-2015 school year Tardy Data

However, not all students are tardy, and the ones that are develop the concern of what exactly the underlying cause could be. Many factors can trigger a teenager’s sleep at night including studying, playing video games, not being able to sleep at an earlier time, or participating in after-school activities.