The sky is pitch-black at a school-bus stop in Olney, and it might as
well be midnight for 15-year-old Joe Palmer. His eyes are open, but his
brain feels stalled.
Think of teenagers as early shift-workers who suffer the most social jet
lag. They go to school at their biological equivalent of midnight with
profound consequences for learning and memory.
Three grassroots groups in the DC Metro area—the Montgomery and Anne
Arundel chapters of Start School Later (SSL) and SLEEP in Fairfax—are
joining forces to push area school systems to provide
