Can you manage having good grades while working, playing sports, and participating in activities?

As the gradebook opens for the school year, students are looking for strategies to improve their grades while having fun and  earning money on the side.

Junior Mansa Lyons balances working part time at Qdoba as well as maintaining hard classes like AP Government. Lyons is a running back/receiver for the football team and plans on playing basketball in the winter. 

Lyons said his job acknowledges that he is a busy student. 

“I like how understanding they are and how they accommodate my schedule knowing I play sports. They make sure I still get hours. I have practice every single day except for weekends,” he said.

Lyons stated that to get his school work done he utilizes ac. lab and for free time at home he takes that as an advantage to get caught up. If a situation were to occur where Lyons is late working and forgets about a homework assignment Lyons takes self-accountability and makes aware next time to mark it in his calendar. 

Junior Elle Haston, varsity softball player and Smoothie King employee, expresses that it can be difficult to maintain her job and a sport. 

“My coaches let me get out early so I can work, and if I forget something my mother is okay with bringing it to me. I work at Smoothie King and I love working there because of my coworkers who are my friends,” she said.  

Haston agrees with Lyons that getting work done during ac. lab is most effective and mentions the latest she’s been out was 9:30 on a school night. 

“Before softball practice starts, I try to write down important things as much as I can of what I’ve learned and this helps me remember what my class discussed and what more I need to do,” Haston said. 

Sophomore Star Gurlly, junior varsity cheerleader and Culver’s employee, included her perception of working. 

“I like meeting new people and working with others. This helps me get out of my comfort zone,” she said.

Gurlly works at Culver’s and likes working for the money. When asked what she thinks teachers should do knowing that she works she states she hopes for teachers to be understanding and try not to give her such a hard time especially if she expresses she’s having a tough day.

“Usually I wouldn’t go to my teachers much, however since I’ve started working I’ve been more motivated to use my ac. lab and actually talk to my teachers,” Gurlly said. “Cheer pushes me more to have better grades with the idea of not being able to still be on the team, my job just focuses on us showing up there, yet a few managers check in on us academically.”

FACS Teacher Evelyn Petty shares thoughts on students balancing school, work, and sports to either be really good (type A)  or really bad (drowning).

“To work, school is your number one job, then you have another job to make money and then another which is to play sports, so it’s a tough balance,” Petty said. “You’d think you should go easy on them but you’d question also how it is fair to treat them differently. You should have the same standards for everyone to be equitable, but then again you may also need to think about it precisely like what if this kid works to help with their family, I’d think it may lead to a case-to-case basis but the goal is to be fair to everyone.” 

Petty said if her kids were in high school and where to get a part-time job the cutoff time would be 9 p.m. and she would be frustrated if she knew her student worked so late.

“Kids need to be kids too, like when is their hanging out with friends time? We don’t feel good when we’re tired, then they’re going to come to class and put their head down, so they’re letting one job go to satisfy another so I would not happy,” Petty said.  

Petty adds a recent place she saw her students working at was Culver’s, Petty also disagrees with the idea of wanting to avoid students’ jobs finding it to be no problem with catching up. 

Petty also states that she strives as a goal to give students at least 15 minutes later in class to get caught up on homework.

“You have two jobs: school comes first in my mind,” said Petty.