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Schools

Hectic High: Teens Sound Off On Their Schedules

Andrew High School junior (almost senior) Sarah Kenny and her peers comment on the often-hectic life of a high school student.

I’ve heard adults complain often enough about their jobs and the difficulty of raising kids and, shockingly, claiming that life would be easier as a high school student.

As a junior at Andrew High School, I don’t have to deal with children, pay into Social Security, or work 40 hours a week, but I find the concept of high school as easy almost laughable. Taking out the drama that inevitably comes when the administration decides to lock 2,500 hormonal teenagers in a building for eight hours a day, the challenge of high school is still a heavy contender to trump adult life in the simple craziness of schedules.

CLASSES

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The District 230 system offers honors level and advanced placement classes to its students, as well as an extra elective class before school starts, known as a zero hour.

Students like myself who have a schedule consisting of honors and AP courses, as well as a zero hour easily receive enough homework a night to keep them in their rooms from the time they arrive home from school until they rest up to do it all over again ... at 7 the next morning.

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Fortunately, the district also provides every student with a homeroom, useful for completing homework. Unfortunately, students who choose to take a class such as choir or word processing – classes that only run during homeroom – miss out on a vital chaos-free half hour in their days. Then there are those, like myself who decided to use up the one other available slot in their schedules to tutor math, science or foreign language. Andrew has a lovely cafeteria, but I’ve visited it only six times this year.

EXTRA-CURRICULARS

Now add extra-curricular activities to the equation. The school day officially ends at 3 p.m., but it’s rare that many students leave at this time, because after-school clubs last until 4 or 5, and sports and theater can take up even more of the night.

I participate personally in the speech team, WYSE competitions, school newspaper, National Honor Society and literary magazine. During the winter months, preparation for Speech Regionals and Sectionals involved almost nightly practices with coaches and team members, and NHS service events and newspaper layouts seem to voraciously devour the rest of my free time. Adults tend to cherish the weekends as a time for relaxation, but a weekend without homework is rare for us over-achieving high school students is rare, so is sleeping in on Saturdays.

Many sports matches occur early in the mornings on these days. My speech tournaments are always on Saturday, and they’re not short. Sectionals, for example, ran from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. Of course, a passion for the arts will effectively eliminate free time. A friend of mine is very active in Andrew theater productions, participating in three shows a year. Her nightly rehearsals increase in length until the week before the show; then, she doesn’t leave school until 10 p.m.

STANDARDIZED TESTING

Juniors have the added burden of preparing for ACT, SAT and PSAE exams, as well as the college credit AP exams for any advanced placement classes they’ve taken that year. While the stress of these tests alone could constitute a whole other article, for now it is simply enough to say that they force out the last of a junior’s free time and add to her already hectic schedule.

AND THE REST

This month, while I may not have been leading the life of a working adult, I was rejoicing in the fact that summer was just around the corner, ACTs were done with, AP tests were in the past, the newspaper was on its last issue of the year, speech season was over and I’d finally finished my NHS service hours. My high school career so far has been crazy, but manageable.

Unfortunately, I’ve heard rumors that college schedules are even more packed. Well, I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.

Watch the videos above for more teens' takes on their schedules, video by Sarah Kenny.

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