By Christina Burke
Featured Editor

Senior Ally Rood seems to have found a pretty good balance between work and school. She has been employed at Market Street for a year and a half and works almost 40 hours per week.

The four years students spend at high school are their last hurrah before being thrown into the world on their own. However, some students stand up to the responsibility of their near adulthood and do something crazy – get a job.

While upperclassmen at Coppell High School spend the majority of their time studying for their classes and living it up, some students choose to manage their time in a different fashion.

“The experience of high school students working a job is great,” counselor Debbie Fruithandler said. “Students work outside their home and get rewarded for doing something on their own. That is not only a good self-esteem builder, but it is also good for a student to see what it is like in the workplace.”

The transition between being underclassmen and upperclassmen seems to come with a load of responsibilities. As an unspoken rule of society, most students apply for their first job the summer before their junior year, thus creating a boom of 16-year-old workers at local companies.

Market Street is a popular place to apply for a job among local students. Market Street Manager Darren McDonald states that around 40 or their 350 employees are under the age of 18. The company functions well for the students by working around the availability of the teenage employees flexibly by tending to over hire and rely on different employees at different times.

It is one thing to be employed during the summer months, but keeping a job into the school year can be work in and of itself. However, some students remain determined to juggle the balance between personal work and schoolwork. These working students tend to have different strategies and motivations behind them.

Junior Connor Savard has been employed at American Eagle Outfitters for about four months now. After earning a fair amount in summer wages, and in order to focus on his academics, Savard has been working approximately 10 hours per week since school started.

“I decided to get a job so I could pay for gas, my phone bill, and also just to have some extra spending money,” Savard said. “I balance school and work by only working on weekends. It would be too stressful to work during the school week with the amount of homework I get.”

Savard takes both AP classes and dual credit courses at North Lake College. He keeps up with his schoolwork during the week and personal work over the weekend to reinforce his belief that school comes first. It is easy enough for him to maintain the strategy of working just enough to pay for his personal expenses and keep up with his schoolwork efficiently.

Junior Kaylan Smith has also worked at American Eagle Outfitters for a little over three months. Smith works on average 10 to 16 hours a week working to pay for specific things.

“I got this job because I have to pay for certain things that my mom can not and will not pay for such as dance classes, a new phone and a camera for my digital photography class at school,” Smith said. “It is hard to manage my time between work, school and Lariettes.”

Smith gets the motivation to put more time and effort than most students into her personal work due to the expenses she has to pay for her own. Although stressful at times, Smith finds it possible to manage her schoolwork and keep up with her hours at American Eagle.

Some students take the challenge of finding a balance between work and school farther than others. Rood works more hours at Market Street per week than most students work per month.

“I got a job so I could start saving for a car, and so I would have money to go and do things. I have to pay for my braces, my phone, rent, my gas and anything I do with my friends,” Rood said. “There are definite benefits from working, especially as many hours as I do. I learn how to manage time and still perform my best even when I am tired or run down. I think this will help me in the long run because it gives me work experience that will also help me in the job market.”

Rood’s personal work schedule falls into a category that adds up to more than the average student’s. As a reasonable and responsible student, Rood finds it easy to manage her time between long hours at work and four AP classes at school, still getting everything done by putting in a little extra effort.

While many students try, maintaining a job is clearly not for every teenager. Accomplishing everything necessary for the advanced classes that upperclassmen tend to take consumes an incredible amount of time, making it hard to judge whether or not they have enough time to work outside of school.

“You have to take each individual on their own and know what is going on with them,” Fruithandler said. “Sometimes you have individuals who are struggling with other issues, and if you add work into the mix, it might send them over the edge.”

Stressful as work and school may be, working on time management can actually prove to help benefit students in their futures. A little work can go a long way.

“Sometimes, if you do have a struggling student, a small little job helps them be more organized, do a little better at school and also feel like they are valued,” Fruithandler said.