Teachers might often feel as if they practicing osmosis in the mornings, attempting to get sleepy students to pay attention and engage in the classroom.

So, the Seneca Valley School District followed a trend that has been picking up nationally in recent years to allow students to start their school days a little later. And so far, school district leaders say that the decision appears to have been a good one.

Although the qualitative evidence regarding the time delay won’t likely be available until the end of the school year, we agree that pushing back the start of the school day was a good idea. Research has shown that doing so improves the quality of students’ sleep and their performance in school as well as reduces tardiness and absences.

According to the National Sleep Foundation, a large number of American teenagers do not get enough sleep. Between after school activities, jobs, hours of homework, family obligations and college preparation, students tend to cram a fair amount of activity into each evening — and often, at the expense of sleep.

The foundation found that the lack of sleep has contributed to higher risks of drowsy driving, irritability, depression, poor impulse control, health complaints, tobacco and alcohol use, impaired decision making, lower performance in academics and sports and, in some cases, even violence. While nine hours of sleep can lead to optimal performance for youths, many get fewer than seven hours.

In other words, it can be exhausting being a teenager. So, we agree with the Seneca Valley School District’s decision last year to push back its starting time for the day by 35 minutes.

Tracy Vitale, the district’s superintendent of schools, pointed out that cognitive and neuroscience research shows that most adult brains begin releasing melatonin, a chemical that controls sleep cycles, between 9 and 10 p.m., and that by 11 p.m. most fully developed brains are tired and will then sleep for seven to eight hours. But in a teenager’s brain, melatonin doesn’t get released until anywhere from an hour-and-a-half to two hours later. So, if students awaken at 6 a.m. for school, it is equivalent to an adult getting out of bed around 3 or 4 a.m. This doesn’t seem to be conducive to learning.

As local educators have also pointed out, the later start date also has a slight safety component. It decreases the possibility of a student traveling to school in the dark. If there’s one thing that we believe is more important than a student’s capacity to learn, it is his or her ability to remain safe.

We believe that the district’s decision to push the start time for students back from 7:34 a.m. to 8:09 a.m. will be a productive one.

We’ll have to wait a little longer for the results of the decision, but if they are positive, other local school districts might want to consider allowing students to sleep in a little later.