Principal Brent Daniels and the administration have implemented a 9:30 p.m. curfew that will apply to all school-affiliated activities.

The curfew was created by the administration team after looking at the Challenge Success survey data which revealed that 47 percent of PHS students were affected by exhaustion and difficulty sleeping, Daniels said.

“We shifted the bell schedule a few years ago and part of [the reasoning behind] that shift was to allow students a couple days during the week where they can sleep in,” Daniels said. “So what we are trying to do is have it on both ends.”

The administration is expecting the students to take advantage of this curfew, Daniels said.

“The school may control when [school activities] start or have caps on the curfew, but we are doing this as a way to allow [the students] to start making the decisions over the non-school time,” Daniels said.

In previous years, there has been discussion around implementing a curfew for school activities, Daniels said.

“This year the guidelines have been put out and the idea is that these are events that are Sunday through Thursday,” Daniels said. “With anything new, it takes time to be fully adopted.”

This curfew did not affect football practices, since practices ended by 6 p.m., said head varsity football coach James Holan.

“I do agree with the idea of the curfew, but I do find it a bit arbitrary since there can be extenuating circumstances like the team is still driving home from a game,” Holan said. “It seems like a hard thing to enforce.”

Sophomore Cooper Ford is on the Varsity soccer team and said that he likes the idea of a curfew.

“Any later time that we would get out would be too stressful, especially on upperclassmen,” Ford said.

The new curfew policy is not just due to homework, it is much more than that, Daniels said.

“There really needs to be a multi-prong approach to this [issue of students’ lack of sleep],” Daniels said. “We want to look at the school as a whole in terms of what demands are we putting on students and what demands are really necessary for us to meet their academic, social, and learning needs.”

Junior Kay Sibal is part of the upcoming musical and although the curfew does not affect her much, she thinks it is a good idea.

“I think a curfew is necessary because it is important for the school to realize that we have other things to do with extracurriculars and college and that it is not all about school,” Sibal said.

This curfew is for benefit and well-being of  students, Daniels said.

“It is all about providing a healthy school experience for students [during and after school] and making sure that our students are healthy,” Daniels said. “[Good health] is the first thing [students] need to excel.”