Solving Community Problems through Citizen-Led Solutions

Starting School Later for Teens

How are you feeling about politics these days? Do you want to turn off your TV, radio, or social media platform? You are not alone! Before you bury your head in the sand, think about going local and finding an issue in your community that you care about.

Beth: While living in Williamson County, Tennessee and directing our medical center’s sleep division, I worked with a team of moms and our school board to successfully start school later for teens. Many teens struggle to get to bed at a healthy hour and wake up for school, due to changes in their sleep/wake patterns as they get older. Some sleep through the first period at school. Tragically, some have car accidents driving to school. California and Florida have passed laws requiring that public middle schools start no earlier than 8 am and public high schools start no earlier than 8:30 am.

While our accomplishment in Tennessee was modest (moved start times to 7:40 am from 7:20 am), it meant that kids could get a little extra sleep and be more alert for class. I was pumped when I received a standing ovation at my son’s science and medicine club after sharing our accomplishment with the high school students.

How did we accomplish our goal? We incorporated community voices into the discussion and listened to concerns, building relationships with our neighbors around the issue. Many believed that teens were struggling to go to bed on time and wake up due to other reasons, such as too much homework or after-school band practice. We responded by looking for common ground areas of agreement— advocating for later school start times within the larger context of teen physical and mental health. For example, reducing overscheduling of teens.

Terra: Beth’s team also educated their community using plain language and storytelling, incorporating research, with the help of Start School Later. I co-founded the nonprofit Start School Later in 2011 with the goal of helping community advocates, like Beth and her team, access the latest science—and to connect them with other advocates around the nation facing similar challenges to share resources and lessons learned. Since then, we’ve seen schools in at least 46 U.S. states that have delayed starts, with improved health, safety, and school performance.

In approaching our issue, we modeled the Braver Angels Civic Renewal Playbook which includes:

• Building relationships

• Developing common ground

• Taking action

Braver Angels is a non-profit bipartisan organization focused on reducing political polarization and encouraging citizen-led solutions.

The action component is key— going beyond talking and listening to do things together to solve community problems. These citizen-led solutions have the added benefit of engaging Americans turned off by politics, who want to make a difference in solving problems at the local level.

As progress is made, a group of volunteers can move on to larger projects. As demonstrated in the diagram above, relationship building, developing common ground, and action implementation is a circular process that continues to build relationships and trust in a community.

In our upcoming book, Beyond the Politics of Contempt - Practical Steps to Build Positive Relationships in Divided Times, we explore these principles in greater detail. Please follow our Substack to get updates on our progress and explore themes from the book.

What about you? What issue do you care about that you can advocate for on a local level? When will you start working on it?

In the words of Margaret Mead:

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.