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title: Start School Later: Girl Campaigns for Later Class Start Time
description: So she decided to do something about it
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# Area Teen Says She 'Will Die' If She Has to Wake Up Any Earlier for School

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by 

[Jessica Roy](https://time.com/author/jessica-roy/)


## Jessica Roy


Mar 13, 2014 7:20 PM UTC

![Teenage students taking examinations](https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt443a00679b05ea7f/6986841513c79f449d190dfd/ab13364.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=3:2)

Teenage students taking examinations, elevated view

Teenage students taking examinations, elevated view Getty Images

by 

[Jessica Roy](https://time.com/author/jessica-roy/)


## Jessica Roy


Mar 13, 2014 7:20 PM UTC

17-year-old Missouri high school student Jilly Dos Santos [hated waking up so early](http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/03/13/to-keep-teenagers-alert-schools-let-them-sleep-in/?hp) to make it into school by 7:50 a.m. So when she heard her district was thinking about pushing the start time up to 7:20 a.m., she simply could not stand for it.

“I thought, if that happens, I will die,” Dos Santos [told](http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/03/13/to-keep-teenagers-alert-schools-let-them-sleep-in/?hp) the _New York Times_. “I will drop out of school!”

Instead of begging her mom to let her sleep later or taking ill-timed naps to compensate for her lack of sleep, she decided to do something heroic: Dos Santos got her school’s start time pushed back until 9 a.m. Now she doesn’t have to die–_and_ she can sleep in. It’s a win/win.

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