Claire Kavanaugh (11) struggles with balancing school, sports, homework, and sleep on a daily basis. “I can’t even have a job during the school year because I know it would be impossible to get any school work done on top of sports,” says Kavanaugh. According to nationwidechildren’s.org, teenagers need between 9 and 9.5 hours of sleep every night and wedMd says not getting enough sleep can decrease performance in school and impairs memory.

        “Lots of the time I’m at school until about 7 [because of the school musical] and I don’t live close so I don’t get home until like 8. A lot of times papers or essays will take 1-2 hours on top of other homework, and I won’t go to bed until midnight. And I have to wake up at five because of how far away I live,” said Krista Proksch (10). That leaves Proksch getting five hours of sleep, four hours under what she should be getting. On the other hand, Tyler Maki (10) says, “It’s not very hard to balance my homework [on top of cross country] because I usually have enough time. “

          Agreeing with Kavanaugh and Proksch, Teddy Nowaczyk (10) says, “There is definitely too much homework. I often don’t do my homework or do as much as I can before I fall asleep.” Some people, even if they have enough time, still struggle to weigh out homework and other activities. “With my time management skills, it’s hard to balance school, homework, and a job,” says Lauren Michelli (10).

      “I had to drop classes because of my job because I never had time to do the homework for the classes and eat and sleep, and a one hour seminar isn’t enough time to do homework for seven hours of classes,” says Sophia Dely (11). Students have to deal with completing hours of homework after being at school for seven hours and possibly sports/other activities or jobs which many feel is way too much. Students battle with having to decide whether to get enough sleep or to stay up late doing homework assignments. “There will be times where I don’t even do my homework because I’m too tired after a long day of school and sports,” says Kavanaugh.

Advice on how to manage homework on top of other activities:

• Take a seminar. You might not be able to do all homework in just an hour but it’s still an hour you don’t have to find time for at home.
• Rather than staying up/falling asleep while doing homework, go to be at a reasonable time and then wake up earlier than usual to complete assignments.
• “Quit dickin’ around in class when teacher give you time to do homework,” says Mr. Neal. (Use your time wisely)
• Don’t sign up for things that you know might make your schedule tight because you’ll want free time to do social things and have time for homework of course.