why student athletes should have less homework

Athletes should be given more flexibility with homework deadlines

Bailey Spore

Junior Nick Hayslett works in PREP to finish his homework on time.

by Bailey Spore , Reporter September 24, 2018

Participating in high school sports is not easy. With practices every day and games or meets once or twice a week, many student-athletes struggle to balance school work and sports. I have had track meets where I don’t get home until 10:00 at night. By the time I shower and eat dinner, it’s 11:30. At this point I have to make a choice. I can either stay up for another two hours doing homework that is due in the morning, (but then have to go through the school day on 5 hours of sleep), or I can not do my homework (sleep, and turn in my homework late).

Studies published in the  Journal of The American Academy of Pediatrics showed that students need at least 8 hours of sleep to fully function throughout the day. This can be an issue for student-athletes who don’t get to sleep until late at night and are up early in the morning.

No matter what I choose to do, I have to go to practice after school and repeat this process again every night. Teachers should sometimes give more time for homework because of this. I realize school comes before after school activities, but athletes are struggling in classes because of the loads of homework they have.

Student-athletes have to find a way to balance school work with games and practices. Many students don’t do sports just because of the amounts of homework they get. There just isn’t time. At the same time, many athletes love the sports they do and wouldn’t give it up because of extra pressure to complete homework. Sometimes that means they will not do their homework just because of how late athletes are at games or practices.

According to  The Foundation for Global Sports Development , “Not only does sleep affect a student’s academic and athletic performance, but a lack of sleep may lead to a greater risk for injury.”

Not doing homework hurts grades, which could make athletes ineligible and would lead to them not being able to participate in sports. On the other hand, if they do their homework, there is a possibility of being up to or even past midnight. Having to wake up the next morning with only five or six hours of sleep leads to academic struggles. 

This issue could be fixed if athletes had more time allowance for homework. Even with one extra day, students would be able to split their homework, and do half one night and half the next. It’s a win-win situation: participate in sports, get good grades, and get a full eight hours of sleep.

A lot of students participate in sports. Mr. Sunkel is a science teacher and the tennis coach. He estimates that about 20% of his students are student/athletes. That is a lot of students who will be up late doing homework after their practices and games.

Junior Nick Hayslett plays for the football team and runs track. Hayslett gets home from games or meets at 11 most of the time and has to wake up at six the next morning.Hayslett said,  “Athletes need more time because they have less time than other students to do their homework.”

“My student athletes complete homework almost all the time. I will make an exception once in a while for a student who will come to me and say they have an away game and won’t be able to get homework done. A lot of my students do their work in study halls after school,” said Mrs. Jamie Hendi, government teacher.

Mrs. Hendi doesn’t believe student athletes should get more time for because they don’t get more time in college, so why should they in high school?

No matter how much time they get for homework, being a student-athlete is a tough challenge. As long as they are willing to put in the extra time and effort, student-athletes do great in their classes.

• Nick Hayslett
• The American Academy of Pediatrics

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• Lancer Spotlights

Student athletes can’t escape homework struggle. Does it matter?

Cries of teen frustration about homework often pop up on social media as a weekend closes and the impending Monday looms over a stack of unfinished reading or worksheets.

Seeing memes for “Sunday homework got me like... ” might elicit a chuckle. But the sentiment is real. It’s not only Sunday — that’s just the inevitable buildup to a week of juggling class, practice, regular meals, games, homework, chores. Maybe also a paying job.

And high school athletes feel the pressure — more than many of their peers who are simply busy — often in exponential ways during the season that could be hard to understand if you aren’t playing sports.

“There are definitely nights where it’s overwhelming,” says Brazil Rule, a senior on the Shenandoah Marlins competitive swim team based in Waynesboro who leaves the house to swim before 5 a.m. most days of the week. “The next morning, I will take practice off, or I’ll have to have a mental health day.”

Makenzie Gray, a sophomore and multi-sport athlete at Stuarts Draft, says it’s the logistics that can be hard to surmount sometimes. Part of the scheduling rigor involves making time for your body to repair itself after a hard game or practice.

“It's usually days when we have an away game where we don't get back until late that I have to make the choice whether to do my homework or sleep,” she says. “For me, sleep suffers. I always feel bad if I don't do my homework.”

The issues are nationwide, really, in almost every high school with traditional sports.

Kayla Rodriguez, a sophomore in Oviedo, Fla., is one of the thousands of teens who talk on social media about their busy schedules.

“I often miss out on hanging out with my friends and having a relationship because the little free time I have is spent doing all my homework,” she says. “Sometimes I have to get up early because I can't stay up all night and do my homework!”

FLAT GROWTH IN AMOUNT

A recent Brown Center report on American education pegs the growth of assigned homework as flat over the years — not supporting any hypothesis that the schedule tension for athletes is new. Or if it is increasing, it might not stem from an uptick in homework itself.

Could distractions like social media and video streaming be more of a factor for teens than an actual change over the years in assignments?

“The current study finds little evidence that the homework load has increased for the average student,” reads the Brown report. “Those with a heavy burden, two or more hours of homework per night, do indeed exist, but they are a distinct minority.”

Robert Pondiscio, a senior fellow at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, has studied the issue. He advises a network of charter schools in Harlem and writes about education and reform. “The ‘over-scheduled kid’ is one of those phenomena that dominate the conversation in media, but there’s a lot less evidence for it than you might think,” Pondiscio says. “The opposite seemed to be true: participation in organized extracurricular activities is closely related (even when controlled for socioeconomic status) to a broad range of positive outcomes.”

Less than 15 percent of students had what was deemed heavy daily homework, even as 17-year-olds.

His own daughter is a student athlete — better organized than he ever was, Pondiscio says.

George Laase, baseball coach at Robert E. Lee High School, isn't sure that athletes are dealing with any more assignments at home than previous generations.

"With block scheduling and the efforts of our teaching staff, students have a chance to begin or finish homework before the end of class," he says. "There are less books being taken home and more technology available to help complete the task. But regardless of the amount assigned per day, I still believe (letting it pile up) really becomes a matter of choice by the student."

And things like Netflix tempt teens away from work they know they need to do, says Rule, the swimmer.

POSITIVE EFFECTS?

Being busy with all of it, sports and school, does have helpful effects, the studies show: on physical safety and psychological well-being, supportive relationships with peers and adults, higher self-esteem, reduced alcohol and drug use and higher high school graduation rates.

Martha Mikell, a teacher at Stuarts Draft High School, says she sees this phenomena play out.

“As strange as it may sound, I actually see students do a better job keeping on top of things when they are in season,” Mikell says. “The more rigid schedule forces them to allocate their time wisely and reduces procrastination. After all, if you have a project due Friday and games late on Tuesday and Thursday, you better do it on Wednesday.”

Mikell does encourage parents to help their teens build in some downtime. Without that, they can struggle even more, given diminishing returns of chugging ahead all the time without a regular pause to recharge.

Parents themselves say they feel the stress of balancing everything, and especially of knowing when to push their athlete about homework, or not.

Catie Young of Waynesboro talked about it recently after a bout of parental anxiety triggered by homework.

She has a sophomore, Libby, who swims and runs track, plus two kids in middle school.

Do you help them manage sports and homework, or butt out? Young admits to the natural lectures to her children like “don’t suddenly remember at 9 p.m. Sunday that your special group project is due Monday morning."

“I get uncomfortable when the kids don’t do things when I think they should,” she says. “What I would like to do is lecture them — mom knows best. Instead, I try to step back and remember how thankful I am to no longer be a teenager.”

Young and her husband usually let things play out unless something gets majorly out of whack.

“We expect the children to communicate with their coaches and teachers when they have to make accommodations for athletics or academics,” Young says. “Homework that requires computer time or Internet access is difficult to complete while on the road with a team, though. Long competitions make this particularly challenging.”

In Karen Gray’s house in Draft, it is sleep that suffers even as her daughter’s grades remain solid.

“The struggle for me is watching her balance everything and being so hard on herself,” Gray says. “She wants to excel in both, and sleep seems to be the area that is neglected.”

An extensive study based on a nationally representative database of 5,000 families and their kids, and how they spend their time, concluded there was "very limited empirical support for the over-scheduling hypothesis."

Colin Whitmore, a senior at Stuart Hall, plays four sports. Those demands on his body mean he can’t crimp his sleeping schedule too much.

Instead, he tries to get up a little earlier to work when he is fresh. Or he dedicates his study hall or lunch period at school to finishing homework.

“Personally, I deeply value my sleep — I have found that I feel and function much better when I get quality sleep rather than gutting out a late night to finish a paper or project,” Whitmore says. “When I have something due the next day that could keep me up all night, rather than stressing endlessly over it, I normally just go to bed.”

In the end, it may just be good practice for these athletes. They will face similar demands in college, if that’s where they are headed.

And most adults have faced the prospect of coffee-guzzling to get through a work day on fumes because parenting, work or going out with friends kept them up late the night before.

Dylan Wimer, a senior at Robert E. Lee High, says meeting that challenge — as best he can — is giving him coping skills for life.

“You have to prioritize,” he says. “Every day I have to plan out what I am going to do — school, track practice, shower, game, go home, study.

“You lose a little sleep.”

Advice for winning the homework battle

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How are Student Athletes affected by homework?

Savannah Braden , Journalist | September 30, 2020

Senior Drew Braden briskly runs by during a cross country race held in Fountain Creek Regional Park.

Being a student athlete is no easy task. From late-night practices to long meets, student athletes truly are quite pressed for time when it comes to completing schoolwork. The balance that athletes face between achieving peak athletic performance and homework is quite indisputable if you ask students. Not only is homework mentally depriving, but it also greatly impacts a healthy sleep schedule needed for both academic and athletic success. 

Many athletes ask whether they are assigned too much homework.

Sophomore Jude Walker believes that since he is enrolled in challenging classes, homework is an astounding resource for him “to understand the content.” Contrary to popular belief, homework can be a versatile and impactful tool when it comes to success in the classroom. From Walker’s perspective, homework is a daunting task each night, yet ultimately is a very significant aspect of his academic execution. 

Yet do all students agree with Walker’s perspective? 

The answer is both yes and no. 

Sophomore Kayla Moore, who swims competitively, believes that by competing in a sport and completing homework each night is challenging.

“[Its] is cutting into our sleep schedule and then that is ultimately impacting our performance,” Moore adds. 

By balancing both a heavy workload and striving to be an exceptional athlete, the factor of getting enough sleep comes into play. Students often have to make the tough decision of whether or not they should continue their homework or simply go to bed. 

Just ask Senior Lillian Lewis. 

Lewis is a student athlete who not only thrives in sports but also is enrolled in numerous AP and honors classes, which provides quite the sizable workload each night. From Lewis’s outlook, she often receives a mass amount of homework in an almost unpredictable time frame, which then makes her, “end up deciding between homework and sleep.” 

Yet in contrast, Junior Joy Kemp believes that student athletes are not assigned too much homework.

 “They are the ones who chose to play a sport and do school at the same time, but could choose to cut down on their workload by taking easier classes,” Kemp notes.

Joy’s outlook not only contradicts other Air Academy students but points out the consequences of choice and responsibility. Ultimately, the student decides to enroll in challenging courses and compete in a variety of sports. 

Even though homework is not going away anytime soon, the incontestable role of a student athlete will only strengthen over time. Yet, the next time Air Academy students begin their homework, they should take a moment and understand that while this is a demanding task, it ultimately can make athletes be brighter individuals once they graduate.

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liam • Feb 20, 2024 at 10:43 am

good article

The A-Blast

Give all athletes a break

For the common teenager, sports are a major part of life. If students are spending time at practices and games, when do they have time to finish all of their school work?

Grade expectations for athletes should have a lower standard because of issues with time management and the dedication that comes with any sport. Teachers should go easier on the workload when these athletes have games or let them turn in the common homework assignment late.

Sports from the fall, winter and spring all have practices before or after school for almost three hours. This does not include team dinners, bonding time and mandatory meetings that take up a lot of time as well.

With the workload that high school students have these days, many students that don’t even play sports are struggling to complete everything.

So what are student-athletes supposed to do? Get no sleep, quit sports or skip school work? None of the above.

Teachers need to cut their student athletes some slack, by either giving them less homework on the day that they have a game or when they have something mandatory for that sport.

Coaches encourage their athletes to get a lot of sleep for the next day or to keep working on skills outside of practice, and then teachers ask their students to study more, give them more homework or stay after school. The trick for student-athletes is to find the balance between it all.

Junior Erica Johnson, an IB Diploma Candidate, member of the Atoms Marching Band and Swim Team while also working part time at Wakefield Rec Center, just doesn’t see the time to complete everything.

“Balance is hard when you’re trying to excel in all of the things you do, there aren’t enough hours in the day to get everything you want to get done completed,” Johnson said.

There’s a triangle of the S’s; school, sports and sleep. The perfect student has an equal balance of the three S’s, but what actual student has that? In reality, a student can only pick two out of the three in order to do them thoroughly and thoughtfully.

For example, students that are in the marching band have practice every day for four hours and competitions all day Saturday. Many of the students in marching band are trying to complete the IB Diploma and get into a good college, but there is no time to finish all of their homework.

“Students are under a lot of stress and we have do much to do between sports and school and work and there just isn’t the time to do everything,”Johnson said.

For IB Diploma candidates, many are forced out of sports because of the homework load, the students don’t have time for sports. Some IB students can come home with five to six hours of homework.

For the college search, many student-athletes are given scholarships to attend a university just because they are incredible at the sport they do. People might think that scholarships that are given to student-athletes with lower GPA’s than non athletes is unfair, but the students that are getting the higher GPA without any sports are working less than the well- rounded student.

Besides, student-athletes not only learn and have great responsibility from team  experiences, they also learn how to have better social skills and manners since coaches do raise their teams to a higher standard than any other club or activity in the school.

Many people characterize a student-athlete as the “dumb jock” stereotype. But actually that’s quite the opposite. The national average high school GPA for athletes was 2.99 and 3.31 for non-athletes, which is not a huge difference considering athletes don’t have as much time for school work as the other kids. The national average college graduation rate was 34.2 percent whereas non-athletes average around 46.8 percent. Again, not a major difference with everything that athletes have on their plate.

Some people might disagree, saying that the students knew what they were putting themselves through, and if they didn’t know how to manage their time, then they shouldn’t have done the sport. Students do sports because they love to be a part of a team or play with a passion. But if they can’t do what they love, where are they going to find their passion to do schoolwork?

Athletes are not allowed to “get away with murder” either when it comes to grades. Fairfax County has a rule set in place where athletes are not allowed to be failing more than 2 classes to be able to play a sport. In addition, students with 3.5 or higher GPA’s get recognition for their achievements academically. Even if it is mainly only freshmen and sophomores considering they aren’t in the full IB program and IB classes yet.

The vicious cycle never ends because to play a sport students are required to get good grades, but these students don’t have enough time to earn the good grades.

Therefore, with everything that the student athlete has going on in their life, teachers of all subjects, IB or not, should be more lenient towards the athlete and give them a break.

The Online Edition of the Annandale High School Newspaper.

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123katniss • Apr 16, 2019 at 1:24 pm

they need to cut them some slack.

Nano Rivera • Feb 12, 2019 at 1:41 am

Playing sports, like many endeavors in life, takes time and energy. If you exercise some intellectual honesty, it should be clear that this is exactly the reason why cutting slack for athletes specifically, is unfair. What about students who study music? What about students who live with disabled siblings or relatives that they have to take care of? Really, what about any of the non-athlete students who have any aspirations or responsibilities outside of school? Athletes aren’t any more special than any other students. This should be obvious.

teacher • Feb 12, 2018 at 4:20 pm

Or realize that sports are EXTRAcurricular activities and should be balanced along with everything else you’re doing. You don’t get special treatment just because you have a game. Students go to the games, should they be given special treatment too? Is there a bubble for you to click as an athlete to make your standardized test graded easier too? Will you be given special treatment in college when you leave High School? No, No, and No. Just get over yourself, and do the required work. What you’re doing for sports is extra

Sean • Jun 1, 2017 at 11:22 am

Learn how to spell if you are going to write a review

Bobby • Oct 21, 2016 at 8:06 am

Megan • Aug 20, 2016 at 7:10 pm

While I agree with the notion that athletes have it harder, I do not believe that teachers should be required to “cut slack” for the students who agree to take on the challenge of being a student-athlete. I personally am taking 4 AP courses and 2 honors courses along with school volleyball, and while I do understand its difficulties, I also understand that it was my personal decision to do this. I believe that teachers and coaches must both understand the difficulties, but not lower their standards because student-athletes should be the most exemplary students in a class. Of course, there will be occasions when students truly cannot balance the time commitment, but 90% of the time, students will be able to, with hard work and dedication. Coaches should understand that time is valuable to student-athletes because academics always trump athletics while in high school. Right idea in this article, but this is much too idealistic and not holding student-athletes to the standard that they should be held to.

Ariana Mackey • Jan 7, 2016 at 10:43 am

I am going threw this see i am on a team called the pep squad which is at my schoo. sometimes my teachers gives me loads of homework but i have practice monday, tuesday,wednesday,and thursday the only day i have off is friday and thats when my math teacher gives me test and when we have home games pep squad has to perform and the games end at 8:00 or 8:30 and i be exhausted and when i get home i just want to fall asleep but then I remember that i sell have homework. i stay until I’m finish which is around 1:00am or 1:30 and i have to be at school before 7:00. so do u see why i only get my sleep on the weekends

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Is The Workload Too Much For Student-Athletes?

October 17, 2022

By Gabby Alfveby

Class, practice, work and homework; Is there even enough time to eat and sleep?

College student-athletes spend on average six hours on schoolwork, 5.7 hours on athletic events, 3.3 hours on social life and roughly seven hours sleeping, according to the NCAA. 

College athletes only have about two hours remaining in a single day for homework, eating and part-time work. 

It is estimated that college students spend 12-13 hours a week just on homework according to a survey conducted by the National Survey of Student Engagement. This doesn’t take into account students’ time spent in the classroom.

Students at Flagler college strive to accomplish the highest level of academic success possible and have been successful according to the athletic director. 

Jud Damon, the director of athletics at Flagler College since June 2009, is proud of the student-athletes for achieving high grade standards in school even while performing in sports.

“Every year that I’ve been at Flagler, and I don’t know how it was before I got here, but every year since I’ve been here, the student-athlete grade-point average has been higher than the GPA of the overall student body,” Damon said. “We’re really proud of that and I think you know that professors have told us that too and they like having student-athletes in their classes. They’re some of their best students. And it shows up in their GPA. So, they have higher GPAs than the regular student body. They also have a higher graduation rate than the general student body and a higher retention rate.”

Student-athletes have an average GPA of 3.08 while the general student body has an average GPA of 2.97. The retention rate for student-athletes is 82% while the general student body has a retention rate of 69% according to Matt Green, the senior associate athletic director at Flagler College.

Flagler College can’t afford to have academic support services exclusively for athletes so Damon and the rest of the athletic faculty members leave it up to each teams coaching staff to find the best way to increase academic success.

Geraint Shaw, a sophomore lacrosse player wears jersey number 88 and plays attack for the Saints. Shaw knows it’s important to get good grades in his academic classes in order to remain eligible to play lacrosse for Flagler College.

“They kind of keep on us for our grades,” Shaw said. “You’re required to have a certain GPA [2.0] to be on the roster. So, trying to meet that standard, they’re kind of pushing you to do it, but then you push yourself to do it as well.” 

Olivia Farley, a veteran cross-country runner for Flagler College appreciates the effort her coaching staff puts in to support them as student-athletes.

“So actually, that is funny you ask. Last week he [Brian Beil, Head Coach for Women’s cross-country] assigned us study groups for the whole team,” Farley said. “I have some freshmen coming to my house twice a week just to study for an hour. He [Beil] also does grade checks every so often which is intimidating but it helps keep us on track.” 

Daniel Miller, the number 18 center midfielder for the men’s soccer team at Flagler College puts emphasis on having a good relationship with your professors and not being afraid to seek out help.

“I know last year a couple of times we went to the LRC [Learning Resource Center]. I think it’s really important to if you’re really struggling with a class. That actually helped a lot. Just even going to professors, having a good relationship with your professors is really important, [and going to] office hours that type of thing with them. I think this year, I’ve been in analytics, it’s the first two weeks, I think I’ve been there twice already because that’s a tougher class. And having that good relationship is going to really help me, you know, get the accommodations I need. Let’s say we’re traveling and I’m not going to be able to attend three classes. She’ll make sure I understand the material and stuff. Actually, they’re really accommodating,” Miller said.

Damon is familiar with the support programs that are available for student-athletes on Flagler’s campus. Damon encourages athletes to see a tutor at the Learning Resource Center (LRC) located in the school’s library.

“We know all the support services that the college has in general, The Learning Resource Center. We advise coaches and other athletic staff members, advise our student-athletes to seek out assistance from their professors. Go to the office hours, go to the LRC, do come to the study halls or however the coaches manage that and take advantage of the resources and opportunities to help you,” Damon said.

It is difficult for student-athletes to complete all their work, even though most athletes say the workload depends on their major and is meant to challenge them. Athletes’ workload challenges them so they will be successful in their future careers.

“I think it depends on the major actually. I mean, my major is not too bad with business, but I know a lot of the finance guys are struggling with workload just because of our training schedules and the amount of exams they have,” Miller said.

The heavy workload is draining mentally and physically which puts an emphasis on how important time management is to not only college students but students who are also athletes.

Caroline Blaha, the number 33 defensive midfielder for Flagler’s women’s lacrosse team is a fanatic about time management.

“I’m really big into scheduling and calendars. I do a lot of time management. I use my evenings to do all my studying after practice and stuff. I never study before practice because I feel like it clogs my head too much for practice,” Blaha said.

The small class sizes at Flagler College help students to be successful as well.

”Well that’s kind of why I chose Flagler honestly. It’s because I knew that it was going to be more of a personalized experience because of the class sizes. So, I knew that I was going to be able to have one-on-one time with my professors to really understand the material,” Blaha said. “I transferred here. I went to Radford and it was huge. My intro to bio class had 350 children in it, in a lecture hall. So, coming here and being in a general chemistry class with 25 kids in it. It Definitely is the reason why I chose here,” Blaha said.

College athletes at Flagler College struggle with the workload but manage to be successful by utilizing tutoring resources at the LRC and staying organized. 

“A lot of people don’t understand the demands and expectations of an NCAA Division II athlete,” Damon said. “There’s a lot expected of them. You know, practices, competitions and travel and weight training, community service stuff and so trying to be high achievers in the classroom requires them to manage your time Well, and I see them do that very well for the most part.”

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• Faculty Experts

For college athletes, success hinges on balancing demands of sports, academics

Research & Innovation

Jayme Blaschke | February 14, 2023

It’s time to retire the “dumb jock” stereotype for good.

A team of researchers from Texas State University has determined this myth, despite its persistence in popular culture and media, has little basis in fact. Rather than student-athletes focusing on on-field performance to the detriment of their classroom education, the Texas State team found virtually no link between enthusiasm for athletics and academic performance. Instead, the factors having the greatest impact on student-athlete academic success was the ability to balance their academic and athletic identities and monitor their time and goals.

The Texas State researchers—Agustín J. García, a doctoral student in developmental education, Carlton J. Fong, an assistant professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, and Yvette M. Regalado, a doctoral student in developmental education—published their findings, “Motivational, Identity-Based, and Self-Regulatory Factors Associated with Academic Achievement of US Collegiate Student-Athletes: A Meta-Analytic Investigation,” in the journal Educational Psychology Review .

The team analyzed 73 research studies that surveyed student-athletes on athletic and academic motivation and linked their responses to college grades. Based on previous research, the team then considered whether student-athletes who were more interested in playing sports than learning in classes performed poorly in school.

The researchers also explored whether grades improved when student-athletes balanced their dual athlete and student identities. The researchers defined how student-athletes balanced these roles in two ways: how student-athletes viewed themselves (either as more of an athlete than a student, or seeing their academic role as equally important); and student-athletes’ strategies for juggling many responsibilities (such as time-management and goal setting).

The researchers found that the link between grades and motivation for sports was weaker than expected, particularly for women athletes. In other words, athletes with high athletic motivation got similar grades as those with lower athletic motivation.

This research suggests that campus leaders and athletic departments can support academic success by promoting student-athletes’ dual roles and helping them to set goals and develop time management strategies. Also, professors who are inclined to write-off athletes as simply focused on sports should make greater efforts to support the student-athletes’ diverse goals. Interventions can be designed and used to improve athletes’ motivation for school.

Although student-athletes need good grades for academic eligibility, higher education institutions should continue to strive for academic excellence rather than settling for minimum GPA requirements. Colleges can support how athletes balance their dual identities and transition to careers after graduation.

Although the study provides a clearer picture about how motivation factors are linked with student-athletes’ grades, several questions remain unanswered. Do the same patterns exist for other outcomes such as graduation? How do endorsement deals and transferring affect student-athletes’ academic motivation?

The Texas State researchers are continuing to study how social factors such as faculty-student relationships and campus climate affect student-athletes’ academic success.

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Featured: Student-Athletes: Balancing the Workload

By Lauren Brown ’24

Being a student-athlete is all about balancing your workload, especially if you have other commitments. With a schedule full of classes, practice, games or meets and any additional campus obligations, it can be a lot, but knowing when you have free time to do homework will make these four years of your life a lot less stressful.

Classes and Schoolwork

Academics always come first at Central —ask any professor, coach or student-athlete. What’s important is finding the right times outside of your sport and using those times wisely to do your homework. Every semester your class schedule is going to be different. That might mean doing homework from 12:30-1:45 p.m. on a Wednesday before your 2 p.m. class or all-day Tuesday because you don’t have lab until Thursday. Balancing your time is key as a student-athlete because practices and games are going to take up most afternoons, nights and weekends.

Practices and Lifting

Each sport’s practice times vary. Some teams practice at 5 a.m. while others enter the gym at 4 or 6 in the afternoon. The lifting schedule is also different for every team and changes depending on whether they’re in-season or off-season. Once you know when your practice and lifting times are, it’s best to plan around them so you’re able to do your homework and still get some sleep.

Games and Traveling

Game days are the best days of the week! The team finally gets to compete on the field, in the gym or on a track. It’s what athletes look forward to most. What we don’t look forward to is all the homework and studying we need to get done for the next day. Some coaches allow athletes to work on assignments during games or meets, which is super helpful. When it isn’t allowed, students try to get their work done before the bus departs or do their homework while traveling on the shuttle bus. I tend to struggle with doing homework on a bus but being able to compete makes it worth it!

Other Obligations

Outside of being a student-athlete, you may have other obligations like clubs, councils or work study. These commitments may add to your workload, but they also add to your college experience. What’s important is finding those random times throughout your day — finding that balance — when you can focus on being a “student” so at other times you can focus on being an “athlete.”

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It’s naive to think college athletes have time for school

Assistant Professor of Sociology, Ursinus College

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Jasmine Harris does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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From my first day as a sociology professor at a university with a Division I football and men’s basketball team, education and athletics struck me as being inherently at odds.

Student-athletes filled my courses to take advantage of the fact that the classes met early in the morning .

The football and men’s basketball players – most of whom were black – quickly fell behind due to scheduling constraints. Only so much time was set aside for academics and, often, it wasn’t enough. Academic rigor and athletic success were simply incompatible goals.

Now – as a researcher who is studying college athletes through the lens of race and class – I have compiled evidence to show just how much more time college athletes devote to sports over academics.

Lopsided but ‘normal’

Early data from my ongoing research on the academic experiences of black Division I football and men’s basketball players shows that they spend three times as many hours per week on athletics as they do on academics. On average, the players spend more than 25 hours on sports-related activities other than games, such as practice, workouts, general team meetings, film sessions and travel. On the other hand, the player spend less than eight hours on academics outside of class, such as writing papers, studying, getting tutored or working on group projects. This imbalance is institutionally constructed and perpetuated. Perhaps most disturbingly, the student-athletes I surveyed perceive this lopsided situation as “normal.”

Some may argue that the players should be satisfied with the fact that their scholarships enable them to reap the benefits of a college education. The problem with that argument is that college athletes aren’t able to fully actualize their identities as students to the same degree as their classmates. College sports is just too demanding, and universities do not make any special concessions for athletes’ additional time commitments.

Money at stake

It is important to distinguish the lives of college athletes who don’t generate money for their institutions, such as soccer and tennis players , versus those who are deeply intertwined with the generation of revenue for colleges, universities and the NCAA, which cleared US$1 billion in revenue in 2017 . That kind of money cannot be made without serious time commitments among the players.

Every time I watch a college football or men’s basketball game on TV, I can’t help but wonder what the players on my screen missed in class that day.

They are students such as Jalen (a pseudonym), a football player who requested a meeting with me mid-semester. He wanted to discuss how my office hours conflicted with the team practices and film sessions. For an hour we discussed what he understood as unfixable. Jalen wanted and needed to utilize the main academic support systems provided by the college, but literally didn’t have the time.

Jalen was by no means alone. Rather, his plight was emblematic of untold numbers of college athletes who struggle to balance sports and academics.

Workers or students?

So, are college athletes workers who attend school part-time? Or are they students who play sports part-time? Players at schools across the country are speaking up about the fact that they generate revenue for the colleges they play for but not for themselves. They have attempted to unionize and filed lawsuits to get what they see as their fair share.

Meanwhile, the NCAA claims that student-athlete balance is not only possible, but that most Division I players achieve it.

Disparities persist

The reality is most football and men’s basketball players underperform academically and routinely graduate at lower rates than “other student-athletes, black non-athletes and undergraduates in general.”

Recent academic scandals – from fraudulent classes to inappropriate tutor support and administrative cover-ups – reveal that a sports-first mentality permeates college campuses.

The NCAA continues to describe Division I football and basketball players as “regular students who happen to play sports.” However, the NCAA rarely details how this student-athlete balance is supposed to work. There are tournament time commercials that remind viewers how most college athletes “will go pro in something other than sports.” However, less mentioned, if at all, are what kind of practical routes exist to this theoretically “balanced” identity. Even the NCAA’s own surveys of college athletes show that athletics takes precedence over academics.

Coaches and college staffers are getting rich in the name of higher education while their mostly black players are – in their own words – “broke.” And this despite the fact that student-athlete responsibilities have grown as the business of college sports grows. For instance, some of the games last longer , and the average hours that players spend per week on athletes continues to creep upward.

Conflicts continue

Recently, 2017 Heisman runner-up, Bryce Love, drew criticism for “ setting a bad precedent ” for choosing to attend summer classes instead of Stanford’s media day.

Almost 60 percent of participants in my current national research study find it difficult or very difficult to balance sports and academics – from the moment they set foot on campus until graduation, if they graduate at all. Considering the fact that less than 2 percent of college football players get into the National Football League, and only 1.2 percent of college basketball players get drafted into the National Basketball Association, the reality is that many college athletes will never see a payoff in professional sports . But the real tragedy is that – having devoted so much time to sports instead of their studies – they won’t really get to see their college education pay off, either.

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Student-athletes balancing sports and homework: Which comes first?

By Ashley Lodise December 15, 2016

Student-athletes at Cabrini University learn skills like time management when it comes to balancing school work and athletics. These athletes spend long hours at practice and the rest of their time focusing on their academics. The passion these athletes have to be successful resides deeply in their hearts. This is because of their dreams to one day go professional or eventually carry out their major. 

According to Lynn O’Shaugnessy of  CBS News , a thletes at  Division III  schools , which are usually smaller private schools, found their athletic load to be most manageable compared to larger schools. 

“I probably spend three to four hours of my day doing homework and a majority of my time practicing,” Michael Diggins, a basketball junior, said.

Because Cabrini University is a Division III school the student body is so small that the professors are able to get to know their students.

This could be why students at Cabrini are able to create a connection with their professors, and is possibly another reason why Cabrini students do not find it as difficult to handle their workloads as compared to larger universities.

Do student athletes ever sleep?

According to The Foundation for Global Sports Development,  not only can sleep affect a student’s athletic and academic performance in school, but lack of sleep can actually lead to a greater risk for injury. 

Theresa Mignogna, a sophomore soccer player at Cabrini, said that she is likely to take more naps when she is playing a sport.

Some students will say that playing a sport will affect their ability to get their homework done, but Mignogna said that she balances her time.

“If I have 45 minutes before practice to do my homework then that is when I am going to do my homework. If anything sports helps me to manage my time better,” Mignogna said. 

Some students can find that niche between balancing academics and a sport. Some find it difficult to balance both, especially when there is a heavy workload.

Renee Oliver, a senior basketball player, said that she does about eight to ten hours a week doing homework and practices about two and half hours a day, which is about 15 hours per week.

“School work can sometimes interfere with the sport because you need good grades to play, and sometimes that can stress you out,” Oliver said.

On the other hand, Mignogna said that both semesters of playing and not playing a sport did not affect her grades; in fact, they remained the same.

Time Management

When it comes to getting homework done for an athlete it is all about time management.

When asking if time management plays a part in her life Oliver said, “I use time management for everything because I work two jobs, it keeps me more organized than I already was.”

According to Peter Jacobs, a reporter from Business Insider , “Collegiate student-athletes may spend more than 40 hours a week practicing, leaving little time to keep up with academic commitments.” 

Nettie Godwin, a sophomore, ran cross country at Cabrini in 2015.

“There were days where I would get out of class and then I would have to wait until after practice to get my homework done.  Sports are a way to motivate me to get my work done,” Godwin said.

It is up to the student-athlete to decide how they will use their time management skills to efficiently be both a good athlete and student.

Each athlete has their own way of balancing academics and athletics. Depending on the workload, time management and proper health will all decide how these athletes will work most efficiently.

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June 11, 2019

Study examines why student-athletes access fewer academic supports, services

by Mike Krings, University of Kansas

The NCAA is quick to point out that the word "student" comes first in the term student-athlete and that the vast majority of them will not go pro in their chosen sport. It stands to reason, then, that student-athletes would have access to all the same services and supports as other students, such as study abroad, internships, learning communities and more. However, that's not always the case, and two University of Kansas researchers have published a study on the implementation of high-impact educational practices and barriers to student-athletes accessing them.

High-impact educational practices, or HIPs, are services proven effective in helping improve students' academic outcomes. They have also shown benefits for diverse student populations across institutions. However, research has shown that student-athletes rarely have access to them. Farah Ishaq, an author of the study who recently completed his doctorate at KU, gained insights from his time as a student-athlete tutor.

"I was able to see a student- athlete 's experiences were not the same as their peers. There were a lot of things within HIPs that the general student population could take that were not as easy for student-athletes," Ishaq said. "So my purpose for this study was to see what those barriers are."

After interviewing more than a dozen athletic department and administration officials at six universities, Ishaq and co-author Jordan Bass, assistant professor of health, sport & exercise science at KU, identified several barriers to student-athletes taking part in HIPs. Chief among them was a disconnect between athletic departments and academic units that controlled HIPs, time constraints and coaches not supporting participation. The journal Issues in Intercollegiate Athletics published the study.

There are 10 high-impact educational practices.

• First-year seminars and experiences
• Common intellectual experiences
• Learning communities
• Writing-intensive courses
• Collaborative assignments and projects
• Undergraduate research
• Diversity/global learning
• Service or community-based learning
• Internships
• Capstone courses and projects

One of the primary barriers to student-athlete participation in HIPs was a disconnect between the athletic department and academic units. The latter generally controls HIPs, and the study revealed athletic departments either don't know about HIPs, don't know who to contact to help students take part and a lack of communication between the two sides.

Time restraints also frequently stood in the way. Intercollegiate athletics demand a lot of a student-athletes' time, and several interviewees said they did not have time to take part in HIPs. Also, coaches did not always support such participation.

"Coaches are primarily interested in the athletic success of their student-athletes," Ishaq said. "One of the people the student-athletes look up to the most is their coach, but is that coach letting them know about academic opportunities, and are they listening to academic support advisers as closely, or perhaps their teammates?"

Other barriers exist, including which sport the athlete plays, what time of year the active season happens and if it is a revenue-generating sport. For example, it is difficult for football players to take part in study abroad during the summer as that is a busy time for conditioning ahead of the season. Student-athletes who take part in sports such as swimming or tennis also faced challenges in taking part in HIPs but did not face as much pressure as athletes in revenue-generating sports, the authors said.

Involving student-athletes in HIPs could have benefits. Ishaq said research has shown that HIPs can benefit students from diverse backgrounds. Athletes are frequently from diverse backgrounds. They also often experience college in a bubble of sorts, not mixing much with the general student population. The authors make recommendations for how student-athletes could be better included in HIPs, including making opportunities such as study abroad more accessible in shorter terms, increasing collaboration between athletic and academic units, and standardizing reporting lines from athletics to academics.

"It really depends on the institution how to best improve HIP access," Ishaq said. "No two are alike. It's also important to understand who your student-athletes are in general and their demographics. The research on HIPs shows they are beneficial to students from low socioeconomic backgrounds, but they are actually the least likely to get them. Research also identifies integration into the general student population academically and socially as important. But it can be difficult when students have these barriers there."

Notably, improving student-athlete access to HIPs and a greater understanding of their availability could help prevent academic cheating scandals that frequently happen at institutions trying to keep student-athletes eligible. Such scandals often start when someone in an athletic department takes steps to keep an athlete eligible academically that run afoul of the rules. With greater knowledge of opportunities to help students, they could be steered into such legitimate opportunities, the authors wrote.

But most importantly, access to HIPs could provide more opportunities to a majority of students, which as the college sports governing body points out, will not play professionally.

"I'm a huge believer in high-impact educational practices. However, these are often not emphasized for student-athletes," Bass said. "As a former college athlete, I did not have the opportunity to do many of the HIPs discussed in the literature. We hope athletic departments will continue to move in a positive direction when it comes to offering student -athletes opportunities for HIPs."

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Why Student Athletes Continue To Fail

Zócalo Public Square is a magazine of ideas from Arizona State University Knowledge Enterprise.

S eventy-four college underclassmen have been declared eligible for the NFL’s upcoming draft, but Ohio State’s quarterback Cardale Jones won’t be among them. A few days after winning the national championship game in January, Jones shocked fans and football analysts by saying he wasn’t ready to go pro, that it was important for him to graduate from college first. What made the announcement all the more surprising, beyond the fact that Jones may never again be as desirable an NFL prospect as he is the year he won a national championship, was that his previous claim to fame was a notorious tweet posted two years ago in which he complained about the “college” part of being a college football player. He wrote that he’d gone to Ohio State to play football, not “to play school,” and that classes were pointless.

Jones now regrets and disavows that tweet. Earlier this month, he was tweeting that nothing is more important than education, under the hashtag “StudentBeforeAthlete.” It’s hard to know how sincere his attitude adjustment has been, or how sincere his initial dismissal of academics was. What is clear is that Jones and his conversion represent a messaging coup for his university and for the NCAA, which has maintained for decades that its primary goal is to help scholar-athletes receive an education that would prepare them for life beyond sports.

Despite the NCAA’s insistence that it is concerned about student athletes’ academic growth, it often feels as though “student” plays second fiddle to “athlete.” Indeed, on a typical day, a visitor to the NCAA homepage will be overwhelmed by the articles (and videos) about athletics but will not find a single article (or video) about the academic achievements of the athletes.

This also seems to hold true for many of the NCAA’s member schools. The University of North Carolina and Syracuse are just two of the most recent universities to be under the spotlight for academic scandals involving student athletes. UNC offered a “no show” class for student athletes (where students received grades for phantom classes that they didn’t attend), and Syracuse allowed academically ineligible athletes to compete. And while these cases are the ones currently grabbing headlines, they are hardly unique; The Chronicle of Higher Education is reporting that 20 additional schools are being investigated for academic fraud.

And what about the student athletes themselves? Student-athletes tend to take easier classes and get lower grades than non-athletes. This is not only true for schools from power conferences in big-money sports, it has been observed in Division III liberal arts colleges and Ivy League schools, neither of which even offer athletic scholarships.

It’s tempting to believe that student athletes care only about their sport, and not about their schoolwork, as many popular commentators have suggested – and as Ohio State’s Jones once tweeted — except that in the dozen years that I’ve been teaching in university settings, that hasn’t been my experience at all. I’ve taught hundreds of Division 1 student athletes at several different schools, and they have been among the hardest working students I’ve encountered. The student athletes I’ve worked with have viewed their sport as a complement to, not a replacement for, their studies.

My observations were hardly unique. One of my students, Josh Levine, ran a youth hockey clinic and was upset by the widespread perception that the students he worked with did not care about school. After several conversations about the issue, we decided that the only way to find out the truth was to run a study. And so we did, surveying 147 student athletes (including some still in high school) involved in various team sports from football and basketball to lacrosse and golf about how much both they and their teammates cared about sports and academics.”

Here’s what we found: When student athletes were asked how much they care about athletics, they rated their interest a healthy 8.5 on average, on a scale of 1 to 10. But when asked the value they place on academics, the result was higher than 9 on average. If anything, the average student athlete cares more about his studies than his sport. #StudentBeforeAthlete indeed.

So why do they underperform in their classes?

One possible and intriguing reason suggested by our study is that student athletes don’t think their teammates take academics as seriously as they do. When asked to assess how much their teammates cared about athletics, the athletes were close, guessing 8.8. However, when asked to evaluate how much their teammates cared about academics, those same athletes guessed only 7.8 – far below the 9+ average.

Why is this important? Because when an athlete thinks that the rest of the team doesn’t care about academics, that athlete tries to fit in by pretending not to care either. In a perverse form of peer pressure, Cardale Jones’s tweet about classes being worthless may be what student athletes tell each other in an effort to fit in, based on the mistaken belief that if they care about academics, they are in an uncool minority.

All of this creates a distressing and self-perpetuating cycle. Tight-knit student athletes will seek ways of fitting into a culture that they perceive as neglecting academics (by defaulting into majors of dubious merit and spending less time doing homework), knowing that their habits are observed by teammates. When their teammates observe those habits, it reaffirms the (false) conviction that caring about academics is an unfortunate aberration, best suppressed.

One of my co-authors on this project, Sara Etchison, has described this process particularly well: “There are student athletes who want to excel in the classroom, but think their teammates would judge them for it, so they study a little less, or take an easier major. And it turns out, that’s how virtually everyone on the team feels, but there’s never an opportunity to realize, ‘Oh wait, all of us really care about what’s happening on the academic side.’”

This is a phenomenon that psychologists call “pluralistic ignorance” – when private preferences differ from perceptions of group norms. It leads people to engage in public behaviors that align more with the perceived norms than with their true preferences. The tragedy is that the norms are false – in reality, everybody would be happier if they just behaved in line with their true preferences.

Pluralistic ignorance has also been shown to underlie the phenomenon of binge-drinking on campuses. A study conducted at Princeton University revealed that a majority of students who drink excessively did so not because they wanted to, but because they felt that was what their friends wanted to do. Once they all had a more accurate assessment of what the group norm was, the amount of alcohol consumed declined.

This suggests that helping student athletes do better in the classroom may be as simple as letting them know that their teammates care as much about academics as they do. Many of them care deeply about the education they are receiving, and should care, because financial success in professional sports will elude the vast majority of them.

As the NCAA and the media focus more attention on athletes’ academic performance , one of the best ways to improve the education of student athletes is to give them license to pursue their academic goals by making it clear that their teammates, and society as a whole, support them in their academic endeavors. For this to happen, we will need many more stars like Cardale Jones speaking out about the importance of education, instead of tweeting about the pointlessness of going to class.

Daniel Oppenheimer is a professor of psychology and marketing at the Anderson School of Management at UCLA. He is the author of over 30 peer-reviewed journals, and several books, including Democracy Despite Itself: Why a System that Shouldn’t Work at All Works So Well . In addition to numerous awards for his teaching and research, he won the 2006 Ig Nobel science humor award. He wrote this for Zocalo Public Square .

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The Academic Challenges of Being a Student-Athlete

Posted By Gracie Meisner and Jack Herr on Apr 25, 2022 | 0 comments

The Women’s Lacrosse team playing Denison University (Photo Luca España/The Gettysburgian)

By Gracie Meisner, Features Editor and Jack Herr, Sports Editor

According to the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), Division III sports, which are offered at Gettysburg College, provide a “well-rounded collegiate experience that involves a balance of rigorous academics, competitive athletics, and the opportunity to pursue a multitude of other co-curricular and extra-curricular opportunities.”

In comparison to highly-demanding Division I and II programs, in which athletes are often bound to athletic scholarship contracts, Division III sports, which offer no athletic money, provide the best opportunity for athletes to continue playing their sport while maintaining a well-rounded and balanced college experience.

With 25% of the student population playing on one of its 24 varsity teams, Gettysburg College is a founding member of the Centennial Conference, one of the “premier conferences for NCAA Division III athletics.” The Conference stresses its commitment to excellence in both academics and athletics. At times, however, the reality of this “balance” may not mirror the commitment.

In her first year as a student-athlete at Gettysburg, Maddie Murphy ’25, member of the women’s softball team, noticed the stark differences between her time as a high school athlete and her new experience as an athlete at Gettysburg.

“Softball has been more of a commitment than I expected,” said Murphy. “I was used to playing club sports that practiced only twice a week, and each high school sport lasted only a season. Here, for softball, you have a fall season, and then you lift in the winter and then you have a spring season. It never really stops, which I wasn’t expecting.”

Like Murphy, Essie Pasternak ’23, member of the women’s lacrosse team, did not anticipate the high level of commitment demanded of student-athletes, though she has since found a balance between her responsibilities.

“Deciding to come to a Division III school, I expected less sport demand,” said Pasternak. “Freshman fall was definitely an adjustment, and COVID totally threw a wrench in plans, but since then I have felt at ease splitting my time between sports and academics. Balancing the two has helped me stay organized and get things done in a timely manner.”

Although Shane Manieri ’22, a member of the men’s baseball team, anticipated his commitment as a college athlete, managing his high expectations for himself has often been challenging.

“I know prior to competing in collegiate athletics that the time commitment would be a grind if I wanted to succeed on and off the field,” said Manieri. “As one who takes academics and athletics seriously, my school and sports balance is one that has been difficult to manage. Particularly, the preseason as a baseball player tends to be the toughest to handle since many practices are held late at night. I remind myself that I play college baseball because I enjoy playing the game, but the time commitment can certainly be stressful.”

According to the Gettysburg College Academic Scheduling Guidelines, “Academic success is the highest priority at Gettysburg… when you combine the experience in the classroom with the experience on an intercollegiate team the overall education is enhanced.”

However, sports teams’ practice times sometimes suggest otherwise. Late-night practices are one of the challenges experienced by student-athletes at Gettysburg. Kenzie Szlosek ’25, a member of the women’s basketball team, explained that her nighttime practices have, at times, posed challenges to class selection, exam preparation and dinner options.

“Because of practices and games, I’m unable to take evening classes and attend a lot of review sessions for exams,” said Szlosek. “Sometimes I’m even unable to go to the dining hall for dinner if I have a late practice.”

While in-season competition counts as an excused absence from class, student-athletes are prohibited from missing classes to attend practice. To work around this, some coaches require that student-athletes organize their academic schedules to leave certain parts of the day free.

“I am unable to have afternoon labs on Wednesdays due to lacrosse games,” said Pasternak. “It is kind of an unsaid rule to try and only schedule night labs so that you are not late to practice in the afternoon. I find myself unable to make a lot of review sessions, PLA hours or extra credit opportunities as well due to sport conflicts.”

Murphy explained that, although her coach is understanding of academic commitments, the women’s softball team schedules their classes around their game days, which typically fall on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

“My coach is very ‘schoolfirst,’ [and] is lenient with our classes,” said Murphy. “However, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, when a majority of our games happen, we can’t take classes past 12 p.m.”

For the men’s baseball team, student-athletes are restricted to choosing morning classes in order to avoid conflicts with afternoon practice times. Manieri reflected that, although it has impeded his ability to choose certain electives, it hasn’t prevented him from meeting Gettysburg College curriculum or major requirements.

Aaron Kirby ’23, another member of the men’s baseball team, has found navigating the restrictions on taking afternoon classes challenging.

“The most frustrating academic restriction is the ability to only take certain classes,” said Kirby. “Many classes have labs that run during the afternoon and conflict with the game schedule.”

Manieri added that being restricted to taking morning classes and having afternoons and evenings filled by practices makes it difficult to get extra help from professors.

“Looking back at my experience as a senior, I wish I could have had more resources at my disposal to help when I was struggling academically,” said Manieri. “Since the in-season time commitment takes up my entire afternoon and evening throughout the week, it is difficult to meet with my teachers during office hours.”

Men’s Basketball playing Westfield State on March 18, 2022 (Photo Luca España/The Gettysburgian)

Student-athletes have also made large sacrifices to continue playing their sport beyond class scheduling restrictions.

“This upcoming summer, I had to withdraw from an internship because I would not be able to make the two-week training session due to the lacrosse season,” said Pasternak.

Many student-athletes are also unable to participate in study abroad as a result of their commitment to long athletic seasons.

“Due to the timing of winter basketball season, unfortunately, I am unable to study abroad in any of my four years here at Gettysburg, since the season encompasses both semesters,” said Szlosek. “Additionally, I have to spend most of my winter break on campus, since we have games and practices, so I miss out on vacation time at home.”

Former football player Jacob Quasney ’24 reflected on his time on the football team that while his experience with teammates was positive, the time commitment and inability to participate in other activities ultimately led him to leave the team.

“It was a very busy schedule with early morning workouts, then classes until lunch, and then meetings or labs that I had to work around,” said Quasney. “After everything, I then had to do homework, which took longer than usual because I was so exhausted. I had little time to relax or hang out with people, other than study sessions, lunch or dinner. I did appreciate the atmosphere with the other players, but I didn’t want the time commitment anymore… so I chose to focus on my classes and still have time for other activities.”

Many student-athletes believe there need to be better resources to help navigate the balance between academics and athletics. Szlosek emphasized the need for improved access to mental health resources for student-athletes as well as an expanded support system within the athletics program.

“I would love to see more mental health support towards student-athletes, and more resources allocated towards us to help us with that,” said Szlosek. “It can be challenging to balance academics, our sport and our health, and oftentimes, our mental health will be prioritized last. I think it’s important that coaches and athletic staff check in on their athletes, and ensure that we’re getting the help and support we need.”

Pasternak highlighted the importance of sleep as a critical component of mental health.

“Sleep is something that many student-athletes struggle with,” said Pasternak. “A domino effect of the lack of sleep can lead to lots of harmful things, affecting mentality and performance. I think addressing mental health issues within college sports should be a priority.”

Acknowledging the trade-offs demanded of student-athletes at Gettysburg, Szlosek and Murphy praised their professors and coaches for providing support when athletics became overwhelming.

“For student-athletes here, the school does a really great job for the most part of making it easy to both play a sport and take classes,” said Murphy. “Professors are understanding of us missing class for a game, and they help you catch up on work you missed.”

One theme rings true among student-athletes: the balancing act is worth the academic challenges.

“I firmly believe that the sacrifices and challenges that go into balancing my academics and basketball are worth it, as I find both success on the court and in the classroom while mainly training this schedule,” said Szlosek.

This article originally appeared on pages 14–16 of the March 31, 2022 edition of The Gettysburgian’s magazine.

Author: Gracie Meisner

Gracie Meisner ’25 serves as the Assistant News Editor for The Gettysburgian. She previously served as the Features Editor and a staff writer for the News, Features, and Sports sections. Gracie is a sociology and public policy double major, with a minor in German studies. On campus, Gracie is an Eisenhower Scholar Mentor, a member of the Gettysburg College swim team, a Junior PEEP for Counseling Services, Vice President of the Women’s Network, Vice President for the Amnesty International Club, and a volunteer for the Center for Public Service’s CASA Sunday Swimming program.

Author: Jack Herr

Jack Herr ’23 serves as the Sports Editor for The Gettysburgian. He served as the Sports Editor last year and was a staff writer before that. Jack is a political science and German double major. Outside of the Gettysburgian, Jack is a Fielding Fellow for the Eisenhower Institute, serves as captain of the ultimate frisbee team, and works for the Athletic Communications department.

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Viking Magazine

Student or Athlete: What Takes Priority?

Yasmin Friedrichowitz , Tyler Wong , and Sirisha Mitra October 19, 2022

Juggling academics and athletics is a challenge that the majority of Paly has to deal with on a daily basis, which can often lead to increased stress and declined performances in both fields. An athlete’s sole focus is to be the best at their sport, yet, on the opposite side of the spectrum, a student’s primary focus is to perform the best they can at school. Student-athletes learn to balance their two priorities. However, the balance cannot be perfectly even and will always tilt towards one or the other. The great question is: which takes priority? 

How good each student is and their goals for their respective sport play a big role in how different students prioritize academics and athletics. Athletes who are looking to be recruited for college have to make sure their grades stand out as well as have exceptional talent in their sport. Sometimes school work becomes an afterthought for athletes with professional aspirations. Social Studies teacher, Eric Bloom gives his perspective on this issue. 

“The idea is that you’re a student-athlete, you’re not an athlete-student,” Bloom said. 

After being a Paly teacher for over 20 years, Bloom has faced many student-athletes prioritizing their sport over his class.

“ [Many student athletes] can demonstrate the discipline for their sport but they can’t show that same sort of discipline for their classes,” Bloom said. 

Many student-athletes forget the “student” aspect of their title. Bloom has been emphasizing the importance of tying academics to sports. He expresses his opinion that getting coaches on the same page about the two will create not only a better relationship between teachers and coaches but it will create a cohesive path that leads to the same goal for the adolescents, the teacher, and the coach. 

“What I would love is for coaches to be like ‘Oh you cut Mr. Bloom’s class? You’re not starting,’” Bloom said, “Or if the student has a C or a D on a report, the idea of tying their athletics to their academics I think would be nice, to get that kind of support from the coaches.”

Paly students must be very disciplined to manage their time between academics and athletics. There are choices to be made whether to prioritize sports or school, a lot of this is dependent on if they want to be recruited for their sport or not. Lincoln Tutor, a Paly senior football player and track runner, has high hopes for his final year in high school athletics for himself and others. 

“Prioritizing school is more important because not everyone can go pro[fessional],” Tutor said. “For lots of us senior athletes, morning lifts and three-hour practices make it sometimes hard to balance out school with sports.” 

Many seniors are taking multiple AP classes and are getting ready for college applications. It can become overwhelming with the amount of work they are doing, but students must remember that being a student-athlete comes with a lot of responsibility. 

“Especially when you have multiple APs and college applications,” Tutor said. “Honestly, it does feel like sometimes that there isn’t enough time for school work, but you just have to stay up later for those days, it’s the commitment of being a student-athlete.”

It is not uncommon for sports to conflict with school. Good communication has been a recurring theme in gaining balance in one’s schedule.

“Teachers are usually very accommodating if you miss a test to play in a game, ask a teacher if you can take your test [at a different time] because of your sports, [most] of the time they would say yes,” Tutor said. “Just communicate with your teachers and coaches and come up with a solution. There are times when my college writing class conflicted with practice, but because I communicated with the coach or the teacher, everything turned out well.”

To further his academic studies, Tutor is looking to pursue an undergraduate degree, specifically in finance or economics and as far as continuing his athletic career, Tutor is not limiting his activity in the future to being recruited.

“I definitely will walk on the track or football team, if not recruited for college,” Tutor said.

Justin Gu, a senior at Paly, stopped playing basketball after suffering from career-altering injuries and wanting to have a greater focus on schoolwork. Before becoming a full-time student, Gu was fairly adept at balancing schoolwork and athletics. 

“It was definitely hard,” Gu said. “ I was really busy, especially during the basketball season, because there was practice for over 10 hours [per week] but then I had a lot of homework. My sophomore year wasn’t too bad in terms of school and extracurriculars. It was just having to realize what is important to me and getting my work done, not spending too much time just goofing around and things like that.”

During his sophomore year, Gu was still able to balance his time well. He would work on getting schoolwork done before and after practice. Many studies have shown that getting enough sleep has a dramatic effect on how efficiently a person can work. Justin Gu has personal experience with such results.

“I slept at around midnight every day,” Gu said. “I’d say that is definitely reasonable, especially during the basketball season. People just need to be able to stay focused in the time that they are working so that way, they are not dragging work on for too long.”

The decision to stop playing basketball was not an easy one. At the start of Gu’s junior year, he had knee surgery and was not ready to play for the team by the time basketball season rolled around. He explained that he was also very busy with school; after all, it was junior year, and he was taking four AP classes including many extracurriculars. Along with his multiple AP Classes, he was part of Silicon Valley Youth, an organization that teaches underprivileged kids many different skills. Along with his volunteer work and heavy school workload, he still found time to run his club. 

“My club is a sports analytics club because that’s what I’m really passionate about,” Gu said. “That is the way I still kept in touch with sports because I am still really passionate about sports. It allowed me to apply the things I’m passionate about, such as data analytics into something else I am passionate about –– sports.” 

Looking from the teachers’ perspective, Gu believes that teachers and coaches are usually pretty accommodating. He agrees that communication is key to having teachers and coaches on the same page. When he had requests to skip practice to focus on a test or a project, they have been understanding of his duties to his sport. Gu also has impressive aspirations for his future in academics.

“I’ve only had high goals for myself academically,” Gu said. “I want to go to a top college and pursue maybe a dual degree or something. Just kind of get ahead in college so that [it] can prepare me for work life at a faster pace.”

Paly junior, Alena Lotterer, dives competitively for the Stanford Club as well as for Paly. She is in the midst of the recruiting process, with a few schools showing interest already. 

“I just started the recruiting process in June and hope to have a school picked out by the end of junior year,” Lotterer said. “I’m taking recruiting trips right now and talking to a bunch of coaches which is super exciting.” 

At many schools, grades play a major role in the selection process for recruiting. Having below-average grades could mean the difference between a full ride and a partial scholarship.

“I think I balance [school and sports] equally; they’re the two most important things in my life that I prioritize in life above everything else,” Lotterer said. “It definitely gets a little difficult every now and then when I have to start sacrificing my sleep schedule or sometimes it takes a toll on my mental health, however, I’m continuously prioritizing those two things. When I’m at home my focus is towards my school work and when I’m diving my focus is towards diving.” 

Being a dedicated athlete requires hard work and persistence. Besides being skilled at the sport, a great deal of support from coaches, teachers, parents, and friends is often a necessity. 

“I think the teachers are really accommodating just as long as you communicate in advance,” Lotterer said.

Asher Friedman, a Paly senior and varsity lacrosse player have some insight into the perspective of recruited athletes. Already committed to Oberlin College for lacrosse, Friedman has an interesting take on student-athletes. 

“I would say I prioritize [school and sports] differently,” Friedman said. “I know school is much more important but I need to stay happy so I need to play sports as well. I think because I have sacrificed most other extracurricular activities, I can’t spend all my time doing schoolwork, so my sports fit in perfectly.”

This balance Friedman has achieved is the culmination of years of dedication to his sport. Since the global pandemic, most school work has been moved online, which meant athletes could catch up on missed school work much easier than before. This allowed athletes to continue to play games, as well as keep up with schoolwork. 

“With that being said, they expect us to be doing our best to make it all work out without having to miss practices and especially games,” Friedman said. 

Being a recruited lacrosse athlete for Oberlin College, Friedman works above and beyond to maintain his academic and athletic success. 

“First off, I am a student before I am an athlete,” Friedman said. “With that being said I need to make sure I don’t get too stressed from school, which is why I need sports. To balance them, I try to be very productive with my time. It helps me a lot having a to-do list and knowing by when I would like to get each thing done.”

Just as Friedman does, many student-athletes use their sports as a way to clear their mind of much of the stress coming from school work. On the other hand, some also use sports as an excuse not to do schoolwork or show up to class. Long-time teacher and Paly Lacrosse coach, Mr. Shelton sees firsthand how athletes manage and balance their various responsibilities. 

“My experience, in general, is that student-athletes tend to either be very good students or to be vastly underperforming [academically],” Shelton said. “It’s hard as a teacher, and previous student-athlete myself, to see some students really succeed and others struggle. I think the overall situation is a product of students either using athletics to better organize and prioritize their time, which results in better academic performance or, they see athletics as an excuse to not complete work and miss class, which results in low academic performance. I know that some student-athletes view themselves as only good at sports, not at school. However, if they just applied the same level of attention, effort, and resilience to the classroom as they do the field, they’d find themselves succeeding in school.” 

As previously mentioned, Shelton was an athlete himself when he was in high school. At that point in his life, he often had a hard time maintaining his friendships outside of his team. However, looking back, he says adequate rest and recovery should be the most prioritized above all of it.

“I’m an extrovert through and through, so this was very tough for me, and I have had to develop a strong work ethic to keep myself focused on individual tasks so that I can enjoy socializing when I’m all done.,” Shelton said. “Student-athletes also need to acknowledge that they will not lead a ‘normal’ social life while in season. This doesn’t mean don’t have any fun ever during the season, but you need to be intentional about it and set aside a specific time when you know you can take some time for yourself. Lastly, you need to prioritize sleep over all else –– if you’re not rested, you won’t do well in school or in your games, and that will become a positive feedback loop quickly if not addressed; sleep, sleep, sleep!”

Many responsibilities rest on the shoulders of student-athletes. Being able to prioritize school and extracurricular activities is one of them.

“I have no issue with students missing class for games,” Shelton said. “Being a student-athlete is a choice and privilege, and they need to understand that they will have to work harder to make up work and teach themselves missed learning. Being a student-athlete is a privilege. It is not your teacher’s responsibility to catch you up because you had a game.”

Teachers have a unique look into the world of student-athletes, especially if they have the perspective as a coach. 

“I do think that student-athletes should be held to a higher standard of attendance and grades if they wish to miss class for athletics,” Shelton said.

Raenen Mathen a senior and varsity football player, sheds light on his experiences with his school and sports and how they have affected each other negatively.

“Practices after school lead to being tired and leaving only a few hours for homework and being tired could affect the quality of work,” Mathen said. “Being tired from practice the night before also makes classes hard and boring because you’re tired.”

Senior and varsity volleyball player Evie Kramer touches on mental health in sports and her experience with it in particular.

“I think my mental health is a lot better when I’m in season, just having something [to do],” Kramer said. “Again, I’m almost always in season because club starts as soon as school ends, but I definitely get a lot of mental health release and it’s a big outlet for me to do something with my time.”

For Kramer, there has also been a positive correlation between her sports and her academics. She learned to balance her time between the two for a filled schedule. Keeping busy keeps her on track.

“I think that when I have one thing after another, I am more efficient,” Kramer said. “I don’t get distracted. I don’t procrastinate. I think sports are a huge area for me; [I] output a lot of my energy and it’s a way for me to recharge.”

Students and athletes, teachers and coaches alike have reiterated that having a plan, prioritizing, and being prepared is essential to setting yourself up for success whether you are an athlete or student, or both. But in the end, each student-athlete’s division of work will be different, not only because we are each different, but because we each make our own distinct choices. Ethan Harrington, a senior at Paly and Division I commit to Princeton University for swimming sums this notion up perfectly. 

“It’s really up to you –– it depends on how good you are at your sport, how good you want to be at school,” Harrington said. “Everyone has the same amount of time, it just depends on what you want to do with it.”

Staff Writer

Palo Alto High School's sports news magazine

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FHC Sports Report

How classroom downtime affects student-athletes

Elsa Kehoe , Staff January 15, 2023 Leave a Comment

More stories from Elsa Kehoe

Now that the second semester is in full swing, homework is something on everyone’s mind. Good grades are obviously crucial in each student’s life. Although, being heavily involved in sports can oftentimes cause grades to be heavily undermined in many student-athletes lives. Sports can often be a great opportunity for students to pursue their love for a specific sport or even be a prime gateway to achieving a higher education through scholarships offered by many universities. Motives such as these often cause students to focus on one thing only, the sport itself. This often causes many student athletes’ grades to suffer immensely. 

Athletes at FHC often have a mindset where they heavily believe sports will land them a successful future. Although this can be true, education is and should still be a priority. Many student-athletes have practices twice a day – one early in the morning before school followed by one after school. Intense athletic schedules like this often cause students to burn out earlier in the day making it difficult to not only let their bodies recover and rest properly, but also to complete school work proficiently. FHC student-athlete Trevor Williams said, “After late practices and loads of homework, I don’t have time to get enough sleep to allow my body to make a full recovery overnight.”

Many student-athletes seem to have the same issue. A simple solution for many athletes would be to have some downtime set aside in class to start, if not complete, their homework. Having the weight of studying and homework after rigorous practices lifted from the shoulders of student-athletes would almost certainly decrease burnout and increase motivation in education. FHC varsity soccer player Gigi Sinicrope said, “Downtime in class allows me to complete homework, helps me to not resent soccer as much, and allows me to enjoy [soccer] more stress-free.”

Not only would downtime in class increase student-athletes passion for their sports, but it also increases their determination to do well in school without individual burnout. 

Attention teachers and students alike: the next time you see a student-athlete relaxing in class, it may not necessarily be because he or she is lazy or is refusing to do his or her work, but rather it could be that he or she is in need of some serious and well-deserved downtime because of all of the intense effort that he or she has already devoted to his or her sport and academics. Until then student-athletes, take care of yourselves.

• Gigi Sinicrope
• Trevor Williams

Elsa Kehoe is a junior and this is her first year writing for FHC Sports Report. In her free time, she likes to shop at the mall, run outside, go to the...

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Center for Teaching

Accommodating student athletes in the classroom, the stigma of athleticism.

As Julie Cheville points out in her book,  Minding the Body: What Student Athletes Know About Learning (Boynton/Cook, 2001), student athletes often fear that they will be stigmatized for their athleticism in the classroom. They sometimes feel that the university system reifies the distinction between mind and body, and that their value to the university is only physical. After numerous interviews with Billy, an African American football player at Iowa State, she explains: Isolated within an athletic enterprise that privileged his athleticism, he had little occasion to understand his significance to the university as anything but physical.  If one layers onto Billy’s struggle broader public assumptions about the ‘hired thug’ or ‘dumb jock,’ as well as animalizing images manufactured by sports journalists and commercial advertisers, the obstacles to academic empowerment to prove formidable.  (6)

In addition to this problem, Cheville notes that being a student athlete also brings with it issues related to racial and gender identity.  Billy, like other African American student athletes at Iowa State, felt that his athleticism made him more prone to social stereotyping as an unintellectual but physically gifted black man.  Further, female student athletes expressed an acute awareness that their sexual identity was under public scrutiny as physically adept women (9-10).

Cheville argues that this baggage is often brought into the classroom, although instructors often remain unaware of the athlete’s concerns or fears.  Student athletes may be perceived to have a built-in support system through their team, but in reality, “the splintered nature of their lives contributes to their alienation from nonscholarship students and from an academic realm that is often interpreted for them by coaches, athletic support staff, and upperclassmen” (109).  Fearing that their athleticism will be “appropriated and used against them by those who have the power to deny or devaluate their presence,” student athletes may feel like a fish out of water in the classroom (4).

Student Athletes at Vanderbilt

Student Athletes at Vanderbilt have a range of resources available to help meet their academic needs.  Student Athletes at Vanderbilt must maintain a minimum GPA as noted below in order to remain eligible to play:

• 1.8 at the end of freshman year
• 1.9 at the end of sophomore year
• 2.0 thereafter

These are the same standards that Vanderbilt students must achieve in order to be considered in good academic standing by the University. All student athletes are assigned an academic counselor and all have access to tutors.  In addition, study hours are required during the freshman year, and they are encouraged to avail themselves of the Learning Center and Learning Center seminars on time management and study skills.

For more information on academic support for student athletes at Vanderbilt, see the  Stratton Foster Academic Center.

Working With Student Athletes

The following are some strategies that have worked for me in the past—they are merely suggestions, and you may find strategies on your own which will better suit your own teaching style.

• Ask your student athletes to remain for a few minutes after class on the first day, and ask them to give you the official list of their upcoming games and meets.  Ask them to highlight the meets that will conflict with your class, and also ask for the contact information for their coaches and academic counselors in Student Athletics.  Explain that you do this as a matter of course with all student athletes, that you understand their many responsibilities and commitments, and that you want to enter into a network of support with their coaches and academic counselors in order to help them be successful in the classroom.
• Express an interest in their athleticism.  Even if you’re not a sports enthusiast, a simple comment or question about a recent game or meet demonstrates that you are aware of your student athletes’ extracurricular commitments.  Each semester, after I’ve done this two or three times, I’ve noticed that student athletes become more comfortable in the classroom.  They often begin to use their athleticism as a point of entry into class discussions, and form support networks with other student athletes who are not in their sport.
• Mark the games and meets on your attendance sheet before they occur.  This will remind you to anticipate absences (so you can photocopy handouts ahead of time) and will also remind you to ask your athletes about games or meets when they return.
• During your first conference with a student athlete, set aside five minutes to discuss any concerns the student may have about keeping up with work, budgeting time, etc…  Let the student know that you understand that his or her plate is more full than other students not involved in sports, but also emphasize that this means he or she will have to work harder to meet commitments both in and outside of the classroom, which can be accomplished through proper planning.
• If you are teaching a class that allows for flexibility with writing assignments, encourage student athletes (or at least let them know it’s okay) to write about the sports they play.  Some of the best papers I’ve received from student athletes have been about whether or not student athletes should be compensated, steroid use, personal narratives about sports injuries, etc…

Contacting Academic Counselors

If you have any concerns about a student athlete’s performance or behavior, the academic counselors will be happy to help.  See the  Stratton Foster Academic Center staff listing for contact information.

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OPINION: Why Should Students Have Less Homework?

The opinions published by  The Match  are solely those of the author, and not of the entire publication, its staff, or Collegiate School.  The Match  welcomes thoughtful commentary and response to our content. You can respond in the comments below, but please do so respectfully. Letters to the Editors will be published, but they are subject to revision based on content or length. Letters can be sent to [email protected].

By Tyler Brand

In today’s world, teenagers at schools around the country are overwhelmed with homework. The sheer volume of homework raises questions about its importance and underlying purpose. I, like many others, have always wondered about the true value of the homework being assigned and whether it’s needed at all. 

Historically, homework has served one primary purpose: to help students absorb the information from their classes. However, since its creation, it has been a highly debated topic. The first records of homework date back to the ancient Roman Empire . An orator named Pliny the Younger supposedly assigned work for his students to complete at home. He hoped this would help his students practice their speaking in a more comfortable and less stressful environment. Despite the early records of Pliny the Younger, Roberto Nevilis , an Italian school teacher from the early 20th century, is often mentioned as the creator of homework as we know it today.

T he origins of modern-day homework can also be traced back to Horace Mann , an educational reformer in the 19th century. Mann admired the German practice of assigning children work to do at home, so after homework spread throughout Europe, Mann eventually ended up bringing the concept of homework back to America to implement into his educational reform policies. However, just a few decades following the introduction of homework in America, anti-homework sentiments spread, and California even banned homework. A few of decades later, homework was even said to be a form of child labor by the American Child Health Association . 

Stressed student working on a computer. Photo credit: Piqsels.

Although I understand that there is some value to homework, in excess, homework becomes less useful, and students experience decreasing marginal return. Daniel Johnsrud (‘23) said, “I think we should definitely have less homework, as I find myself completing my homework simply to get it done rather than to better understand what I am learning. I just go through the motions.” When students are given a surplus of homework, their stress levels are increased, as they are crunched for time to complete it all. A Stanford researcher’s study on ten upper middle class California schools discovered that 56% of students found homework as the primary stressor, and that it leads to a decrease in their amount of sleep, which negatively affects the students’ physical well-being. This increased stress also inevitably causes students to take shortcuts while completing their homework, which undermine its original intent.

Michael West (‘23) said, “I believe that students should not receive the amount of homework as we do, because having too much can overload the mind and lead to less educational growth… For a student body to grow academically and mature as individuals, they should not be forced to constantly work but rather be entrusted with the liberty to pursue their own goals as young adults.”  I wholeheartedly agree with both students’ about the overwhelming nature of large amounts of homework and its effects on students.

I find myself doing my three hours of homework each night simply for the sake of completing it rather than to learn anything. However, whenever I have less homework on any given night, closer to an hour and a half of homework, I am able to spend more time on each assignment. When this happens, I am able to take the time to better understand and reinforce the concepts learned in class. For example, on a typical night, I have roughly 30 minutes of homework in five of my six academic classes, in addition to studying for any assessments or writing any papers. That being said, on days where I don’t have as much or any homework in a few of my classes, it allows me to spend more time on the other assignments, as well as focus more heavily on studying for future assessments and writing more eloquent essays.

Upper School English teacher and Match advisor Vlastik Svab said, “Over my 15 years at Collegiate, I have generally given less and less homework each year. Since I teach English, reading at home, and working on essay drafts at home, are valuable activities for my students. But I have seen student stress levels generally go up over the years, so I keep that in mind when considering assignments. Collegiate students are asked to do many things over the course of a week.” Svab brings up a solid point about the effectiveness of assigning reading and writing outside of class for English; however, he still tries to make the workload manageable for students, as he understands the demanding schedule of the well-rounded student body at Collegiate.

Upper School Economics teacher Rob Wedge said, “I’m not always sure that volume is the issue. It’s the [assignment itself] that matters. For example, I don’t assign daily homework because I think we can do what we need to do, for the most part, in class, but I do [assign] quizzes on the weekend.That kind of assignment, that’s graded, is meaningful. I’m not opposed to homework or less homework, but at the end of the day, it needs to be better, meaningful homework that serves a purpose.” Although Wedge doesn’t directly believe that less homework would benefit students, he strongly believes that homework should serve a purpose beyond busy work. There is no point in assigning homework if it’s just to check off boxes, as that does not further student learning. It simply takes up more of their already limited time.

In addition to the benefits of less homework, students would also have more free time to pursue extracurriculars of interest. At Collegiate, we get plenty of opportunities to participate in extracurricular activities, and there is a two-season sports requirement in the Upper School. However, these activities lead to a significant decrease in time after school to complete homework, thus making homework less effective and day-to-day life less enjoyable. 

Some students have even more extreme views on homework, particularly at Collegiate, and they believe that we should not have homework at all. They argue that we attend school for seven hours a day, followed by two hours of after-school extracurriculars, before finally heading home and needing to complete three hours of homework before going to sleep. By the time you factor in eating dinner, catching up with family, and getting ready for bed, the amount of time in the day to do homework is very minimal. This causes the majority of teens to get less sleep, which affects their overall physical and mental health negatively. The CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) even advocates the importance of getting 8-10 hours of sleep every 24 hours for students of ages 13-18 years old. Students who do not meet this suggested amount are at a much higher risk of health problems such as diabetes, obesity, injuries, poor mental health, and problems with attention and behavior.

Given the research and opinions out there , it’s clear that homework provides less of an upside than a downside. Schools around the world should not completely eliminate homework, yet they should strive to assign less homework so as to have more well-rounded and healthier students.

Featured image credit: Piqsels.

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Tyler is a member of the class of 2023 and thinks Mr. Svab has great hair.

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Home » Tips for Teachers » 7 Research-Based Reasons Why Students Should Not Have Homework: Academic Insights, Opposing Perspectives & Alternatives

7 Research-Based Reasons Why Students Should Not Have Homework: Academic Insights, Opposing Perspectives & Alternatives

In recent years, the question of why students should not have homework has become a topic of intense debate among educators, parents, and students themselves. This discussion stems from a growing body of research that challenges the traditional view of homework as an essential component of academic success. The notion that homework is an integral part of learning is being reevaluated in light of new findings about its effectiveness and impact on students’ overall well-being.

The push against homework is not just about the hours spent on completing assignments; it’s about rethinking the role of education in fostering the well-rounded development of young individuals. Critics argue that homework, particularly in excessive amounts, can lead to negative outcomes such as stress, burnout, and a diminished love for learning. Moreover, it often disproportionately affects students from disadvantaged backgrounds, exacerbating educational inequities. The debate also highlights the importance of allowing children to have enough free time for play, exploration, and family interaction, which are crucial for their social and emotional development.

Checking 13yo’s math homework & I have just one question. I can catch mistakes & help her correct. But what do kids do when their parent isn’t an Algebra teacher? Answer: They get frustrated. Quit. Get a bad grade. Think they aren’t good at math. How is homework fair??? — Jay Wamsted (@JayWamsted) March 24, 2022

As we delve into this discussion, we explore various facets of why reducing or even eliminating homework could be beneficial. We consider the research, weigh the pros and cons, and examine alternative approaches to traditional homework that can enhance learning without overburdening students.

Once you’ve finished this article, you’ll know:

• Insights from Teachers and Education Industry Experts →
• 7 Reasons Why Students Should Not Have Homework →
• Opposing Views on Homework Practices →
• Exploring Alternatives to Homework →

Insights from Teachers and Education Industry Experts: Diverse Perspectives on Homework

In the ongoing conversation about the role and impact of homework in education, the perspectives of those directly involved in the teaching process are invaluable. Teachers and education industry experts bring a wealth of experience and insights from the front lines of learning. Their viewpoints, shaped by years of interaction with students and a deep understanding of educational methodologies, offer a critical lens through which we can evaluate the effectiveness and necessity of homework in our current educational paradigm.

Check out this video featuring Courtney White, a high school language arts teacher who gained widespread attention for her explanation of why she chooses not to assign homework.

Here are the insights and opinions from various experts in the educational field on this topic:

“I teach 1st grade. I had parents ask for homework. I explained that I don’t give homework. Home time is family time. Time to play, cook, explore and spend time together. I do send books home, but there is no requirement or checklist for reading them. Read them, enjoy them, and return them when your child is ready for more. I explained that as a parent myself, I know they are busy—and what a waste of energy it is to sit and force their kids to do work at home—when they could use that time to form relationships and build a loving home. Something kids need more than a few math problems a week.” — Colleen S. , 1st grade teacher

“The lasting educational value of homework at that age is not proven. A kid says the times tables [at school] because he studied the times tables last night. But over a long period of time, a kid who is drilled on the times tables at school, rather than as homework, will also memorize their times tables. We are worried about young children and their social emotional learning. And that has to do with physical activity, it has to do with playing with peers, it has to do with family time. All of those are very important and can be removed by too much homework.” — David Bloomfield , education professor at Brooklyn College and the City University of New York graduate center

“Homework in primary school has an effect of around zero. In high school it’s larger. (…) Which is why we need to get it right. Not why we need to get rid of it. It’s one of those lower hanging fruit that we should be looking in our primary schools to say, ‘Is it really making a difference?’” — John Hattie , professor

”Many kids are working as many hours as their overscheduled parents and it is taking a toll – psychologically and in many other ways too. We see kids getting up hours before school starts just to get their homework done from the night before… While homework may give kids one more responsibility, it ignores the fact that kids do not need to grow up and become adults at ages 10 or 12. With schools cutting recess time or eliminating playgrounds, kids absorb every single stress there is, only on an even higher level. Their brains and bodies need time to be curious, have fun, be creative and just be a kid.” — Pat Wayman, teacher and CEO of HowtoLearn.com

7 Reasons Why Students Should Not Have Homework

Let’s delve into the reasons against assigning homework to students. Examining these arguments offers important perspectives on the wider educational and developmental consequences of homework practices.

1. Elevated Stress and Health Consequences

The ongoing debate about homework often focuses on its educational value, but a vital aspect that cannot be overlooked is the significant stress and health consequences it brings to students. In the context of American life, where approximately 70% of people report moderate or extreme stress due to various factors like mass shootings, healthcare affordability, discrimination, racism, sexual harassment, climate change, presidential elections, and the need to stay informed, the additional burden of homework further exacerbates this stress, particularly among students.

Key findings and statistics reveal a worrying trend:

• Overwhelming Student Stress: A staggering 72% of students report being often or always stressed over schoolwork, with a concerning 82% experiencing physical symptoms due to this stress.
• Serious Health Issues: Symptoms linked to homework stress include sleep deprivation, headaches, exhaustion, weight loss, and stomach problems.
• Sleep Deprivation: Despite the National Sleep Foundation recommending 8.5 to 9.25 hours of sleep for healthy adolescent development, students average just 6.80 hours of sleep on school nights. About 68% of students stated that schoolwork often or always prevented them from getting enough sleep, which is critical for their physical and mental health.
• Turning to Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms: Alarmingly, the pressure from excessive homework has led some students to turn to alcohol and drugs as a way to cope with stress.

This data paints a concerning picture. Students, already navigating a world filled with various stressors, find themselves further burdened by homework demands. The direct correlation between excessive homework and health issues indicates a need for reevaluation. The goal should be to ensure that homework if assigned, adds value to students’ learning experiences without compromising their health and well-being.

By addressing the issue of homework-related stress and health consequences, we can take a significant step toward creating a more nurturing and effective educational environment. This environment would not only prioritize academic achievement but also the overall well-being and happiness of students, preparing them for a balanced and healthy life both inside and outside the classroom.

2. Inequitable Impact and Socioeconomic Disparities

In the discourse surrounding educational equity, homework emerges as a factor exacerbating socioeconomic disparities, particularly affecting students from lower-income families and those with less supportive home environments. While homework is often justified as a means to raise academic standards and promote equity, its real-world impact tells a different story.

The inequitable burden of homework becomes starkly evident when considering the resources required to complete it, especially in the digital age. Homework today often necessitates a computer and internet access – resources not readily available to all students. This digital divide significantly disadvantages students from lower-income backgrounds, deepening the chasm between them and their more affluent peers.

Key points highlighting the disparities:

• Digital Inequity: Many students lack access to necessary technology for homework, with low-income families disproportionately affected.
• Impact of COVID-19: The pandemic exacerbated these disparities as education shifted online, revealing the extent of the digital divide.
• Educational Outcomes Tied to Income: A critical indicator of college success is linked more to family income levels than to rigorous academic preparation. Research indicates that while 77% of students from high-income families graduate from highly competitive colleges, only 9% from low-income families achieve the same . This disparity suggests that the pressure of heavy homework loads, rather than leveling the playing field, may actually hinder the chances of success for less affluent students.

Moreover, the approach to homework varies significantly across different types of schools. While some rigorous private and preparatory schools in both marginalized and affluent communities assign extreme levels of homework, many progressive schools focusing on holistic learning and self-actualization opt for no homework, yet achieve similar levels of college and career success. This contrast raises questions about the efficacy and necessity of heavy homework loads in achieving educational outcomes.

The issue of homework and its inequitable impact is not just an academic concern; it is a reflection of broader societal inequalities. By continuing practices that disproportionately burden students from less privileged backgrounds, the educational system inadvertently perpetuates the very disparities it seeks to overcome.

3. Negative Impact on Family Dynamics

Homework, a staple of the educational system, is often perceived as a necessary tool for academic reinforcement. However, its impact extends beyond the realm of academics, significantly affecting family dynamics. The negative repercussions of homework on the home environment have become increasingly evident, revealing a troubling pattern that can lead to conflict, mental health issues, and domestic friction.

A study conducted in 2015 involving 1,100 parents sheds light on the strain homework places on family relationships. The findings are telling:

• Increased Likelihood of Conflicts: Families where parents did not have a college degree were 200% more likely to experience fights over homework.
• Misinterpretations and Misunderstandings: Parents often misinterpret their children’s difficulties with homework as a lack of attention in school, leading to feelings of frustration and mistrust on both sides.
• Discriminatory Impact: The research concluded that the current approach to homework disproportionately affects children whose parents have lower educational backgrounds, speak English as a second language, or belong to lower-income groups.

The issue is not confined to specific demographics but is a widespread concern. Samantha Hulsman, a teacher featured in Education Week Teacher , shared her personal experience with the toll that homework can take on family time. She observed that a seemingly simple 30-minute assignment could escalate into a three-hour ordeal, causing stress and strife between parents and children. Hulsman’s insights challenge the traditional mindset about homework, highlighting a shift towards the need for skills such as collaboration and problem-solving over rote memorization of facts.

The need of the hour is to reassess the role and amount of homework assigned to students. It’s imperative to find a balance that facilitates learning and growth without compromising the well-being of the family unit. Such a reassessment would not only aid in reducing domestic conflicts but also contribute to a more supportive and nurturing environment for children’s overall development.

4. Consumption of Free Time

In recent years, a growing chorus of voices has raised concerns about the excessive burden of homework on students, emphasizing how it consumes their free time and impedes their overall well-being. The issue is not just the quantity of homework, but its encroachment on time that could be used for personal growth, relaxation, and family bonding.

Authors Sara Bennett and Nancy Kalish , in their book “The Case Against Homework,” offer an insightful window into the lives of families grappling with the demands of excessive homework. They share stories from numerous interviews conducted in the mid-2000s, highlighting the universal struggle faced by families across different demographics. A poignant account from a parent in Menlo Park, California, describes nightly sessions extending until 11 p.m., filled with stress and frustration, leading to a soured attitude towards school in both the child and the parent. This narrative is not isolated, as about one-third of the families interviewed expressed feeling crushed by the overwhelming workload.

Key points of concern:

• Excessive Time Commitment: Students, on average, spend over 6 hours in school each day, and homework adds significantly to this time, leaving little room for other activities.
• Impact on Extracurricular Activities: Homework infringes upon time for sports, music, art, and other enriching experiences, which are as crucial as academic courses.
• Stifling Creativity and Self-Discovery: The constant pressure of homework limits opportunities for students to explore their interests and learn new skills independently.

The National Education Association (NEA) and the National PTA (NPTA) recommend a “10 minutes of homework per grade level” standard, suggesting a more balanced approach. However, the reality often far exceeds this guideline, particularly for older students. The impact of this overreach is profound, affecting not just academic performance but also students’ attitudes toward school, their self-confidence, social skills, and overall quality of life.

Furthermore, the intense homework routine’s effectiveness is doubtful, as it can overwhelm students and detract from the joy of learning. Effective learning builds on prior knowledge in an engaging way, but excessive homework in a home setting may be irrelevant and uninteresting. The key challenge is balancing homework to enhance learning without overburdening students, allowing time for holistic growth and activities beyond academics. It’s crucial to reassess homework policies to support well-rounded development.

5. Challenges for Students with Learning Disabilities

Homework, a standard educational tool, poses unique challenges for students with learning disabilities, often leading to a frustrating and disheartening experience. These challenges go beyond the typical struggles faced by most students and can significantly impede their educational progress and emotional well-being.

Child psychologist Kenneth Barish’s insights in Psychology Today shed light on the complex relationship between homework and students with learning disabilities:

• Homework as a Painful Endeavor: For students with learning disabilities, completing homework can be likened to “running with a sprained ankle.” It’s a task that, while doable, is fraught with difficulty and discomfort.
• Misconceptions about Laziness: Often, children who struggle with homework are perceived as lazy. However, Barish emphasizes that these students are more likely to be frustrated, discouraged, or anxious rather than unmotivated.
• Limited Improvement in School Performance: The battles over homework rarely translate into significant improvement in school for these children, challenging the conventional notion of homework as universally beneficial.

These points highlight the need for a tailored approach to homework for students with learning disabilities. It’s crucial to recognize that the traditional homework model may not be the most effective or appropriate method for facilitating their learning. Instead, alternative strategies that accommodate their unique needs and learning styles should be considered.

In conclusion, the conventional homework paradigm needs reevaluation, particularly concerning students with learning disabilities. By understanding and addressing their unique challenges, educators can create a more inclusive and supportive educational environment. This approach not only aids in their academic growth but also nurtures their confidence and overall development, ensuring that they receive an equitable and empathetic educational experience.

6. Critique of Underlying Assumptions about Learning

The longstanding belief in the educational sphere that more homework automatically translates to more learning is increasingly being challenged. Critics argue that this assumption is not only flawed but also unsupported by solid evidence, questioning the efficacy of homework as an effective learning tool.

Alfie Kohn , a prominent critic of homework, aptly compares students to vending machines in this context, suggesting that the expectation of inserting an assignment and automatically getting out of learning is misguided. Kohn goes further, labeling homework as the “greatest single extinguisher of children’s curiosity.” This critique highlights a fundamental issue: the potential of homework to stifle the natural inquisitiveness and love for learning in children.

The lack of concrete evidence supporting the effectiveness of homework is evident in various studies:

• Marginal Effectiveness of Homework: A study involving 28,051 high school seniors found that the effectiveness of homework was marginal, and in some cases, it was counterproductive, leading to more academic problems than solutions.
• No Correlation with Academic Achievement: Research in “ National Differences, Global Similarities ” showed no correlation between homework and academic achievement in elementary students, and any positive correlation in middle or high school diminished with increasing homework loads.
• Increased Academic Pressure: The Teachers College Record published findings that homework adds to academic pressure and societal stress, exacerbating performance gaps between students from different socioeconomic backgrounds.

These findings bring to light several critical points:

• Quality Over Quantity: According to a recent article in Monitor on Psychology , experts concur that the quality of homework assignments, along with the quality of instruction, student motivation, and inherent ability, is more crucial for academic success than the quantity of homework.
• Counterproductive Nature of Excessive Homework: Excessive homework can lead to more academic challenges, particularly for students already facing pressures from other aspects of their lives.
• Societal Stress and Performance Gaps: Homework can intensify societal stress and widen the academic performance divide.

The emerging consensus from these studies suggests that the traditional approach to homework needs rethinking. Rather than focusing on the quantity of assignments, educators should consider the quality and relevance of homework, ensuring it truly contributes to learning and development. This reassessment is crucial for fostering an educational environment that nurtures curiosity and a love for learning, rather than extinguishing it.

7. Issues with Homework Enforcement, Reliability, and Temptation to Cheat

In the academic realm, the enforcement of homework is a subject of ongoing debate, primarily due to its implications on student integrity and the true value of assignments. The challenges associated with homework enforcement often lead to unintended yet significant issues, such as cheating, copying, and a general undermining of educational values.

Key points highlighting enforcement challenges:

• Difficulty in Enforcing Completion: Ensuring that students complete their homework can be a complex task, and not completing homework does not always correlate with poor grades.
• Reliability of Homework Practice: The reliability of homework as a practice tool is undermined when students, either out of desperation or lack of understanding, choose shortcuts over genuine learning. This approach can lead to the opposite of the intended effect, especially when assignments are not well-aligned with the students’ learning levels or interests.
• Temptation to Cheat: The issue of cheating is particularly troubling. According to a report by The Chronicle of Higher Education , under the pressure of at-home assignments, many students turn to copying others’ work, plagiarizing, or using creative technological “hacks.” This tendency not only questions the integrity of the learning process but also reflects the extreme stress that homework can induce.
• Parental Involvement in Completion: As noted in The American Journal of Family Therapy , this raises concerns about the authenticity of the work submitted. When parents complete assignments for their children, it not only deprives the students of the opportunity to learn but also distorts the purpose of homework as a learning aid.

In conclusion, the challenges of homework enforcement present a complex problem that requires careful consideration. The focus should shift towards creating meaningful, manageable, and quality-driven assignments that encourage genuine learning and integrity, rather than overwhelming students and prompting counterproductive behaviors.

Addressing Opposing Views on Homework Practices

While opinions on homework policies are diverse, understanding different viewpoints is crucial. In the following sections, we will examine common arguments supporting homework assignments, along with counterarguments that offer alternative perspectives on this educational practice.

1. Improvement of Academic Performance

Homework is commonly perceived as a means to enhance academic performance, with the belief that it directly contributes to better grades and test scores. This view posits that through homework, students reinforce what they learn in class, leading to improved understanding and retention, which ultimately translates into higher academic achievement.

However, the question of why students should not have homework becomes pertinent when considering the complex relationship between homework and academic performance. Studies have indicated that excessive homework doesn’t necessarily equate to higher grades or test scores. Instead, too much homework can backfire, leading to stress and fatigue that adversely affect a student’s performance. Reuters highlights an intriguing correlation suggesting that physical activity may be more conducive to academic success than additional homework, underscoring the importance of a holistic approach to education that prioritizes both physical and mental well-being for enhanced academic outcomes.

2. Reinforcement of Learning

Homework is traditionally viewed as a tool to reinforce classroom learning, enabling students to practice and retain material. However, research suggests its effectiveness is ambiguous. In instances where homework is well-aligned with students’ abilities and classroom teachings, it can indeed be beneficial. Particularly for younger students , excessive homework can cause burnout and a loss of interest in learning, counteracting its intended purpose.

Furthermore, when homework surpasses a student’s capability, it may induce frustration and confusion rather than aid in learning. This challenges the notion that more homework invariably leads to better understanding and retention of educational content.

3. Development of Time Management Skills

Homework is often considered a crucial tool in helping students develop important life skills such as time management and organization. The idea is that by regularly completing assignments, students learn to allocate their time efficiently and organize their tasks effectively, skills that are invaluable in both academic and personal life.

However, the impact of homework on developing these skills is not always positive. For younger students, especially, an overwhelming amount of homework can be more of a hindrance than a help. Instead of fostering time management and organizational skills, an excessive workload often leads to stress and anxiety . These negative effects can impede the learning process and make it difficult for students to manage their time and tasks effectively, contradicting the original purpose of homework.

4. Preparation for Future Academic Challenges

Homework is often touted as a preparatory tool for future academic challenges that students will encounter in higher education and their professional lives. The argument is that by tackling homework, students build a foundation of knowledge and skills necessary for success in more advanced studies and in the workforce, fostering a sense of readiness and confidence.

Contrarily, an excessive homework load, especially from a young age, can have the opposite effect . It can instill a negative attitude towards education, dampening students’ enthusiasm and willingness to embrace future academic challenges. Overburdening students with homework risks disengagement and loss of interest, thereby defeating the purpose of preparing them for future challenges. Striking a balance in the amount and complexity of homework is crucial to maintaining student engagement and fostering a positive attitude towards ongoing learning.

5. Parental Involvement in Education

Homework often acts as a vital link connecting parents to their child’s educational journey, offering insights into the school’s curriculum and their child’s learning process. This involvement is key in fostering a supportive home environment and encouraging a collaborative relationship between parents and the school. When parents understand and engage with what their children are learning, it can significantly enhance the educational experience for the child.

However, the line between involvement and over-involvement is thin. When parents excessively intervene by completing their child’s homework,  it can have adverse effects . Such actions not only diminish the educational value of homework but also rob children of the opportunity to develop problem-solving skills and independence. This over-involvement, coupled with disparities in parental ability to assist due to variations in time, knowledge, or resources, may lead to unequal educational outcomes, underlining the importance of a balanced approach to parental participation in homework.

Exploring Alternatives to Homework and Finding a Middle Ground

In the ongoing debate about the role of homework in education, it’s essential to consider viable alternatives and strategies to minimize its burden. While completely eliminating homework may not be feasible for all educators, there are several effective methods to reduce its impact and offer more engaging, student-friendly approaches to learning.

Alternatives to Traditional Homework

• Project-Based Learning: This method focuses on hands-on, long-term projects where students explore real-world problems. It encourages creativity, critical thinking, and collaborative skills, offering a more engaging and practical learning experience than traditional homework. For creative ideas on school projects, especially related to the solar system, be sure to explore our dedicated article on solar system projects .
• Flipped Classrooms: Here, students are introduced to new content through videos or reading materials at home and then use class time for interactive activities. This approach allows for more personalized and active learning during school hours.
• Reading for Pleasure: Encouraging students to read books of their choice can foster a love for reading and improve literacy skills without the pressure of traditional homework assignments. This approach is exemplified by Marion County, Florida , where public schools implemented a no-homework policy for elementary students. Instead, they are encouraged to read nightly for 20 minutes . Superintendent Heidi Maier’s decision was influenced by research showing that while homework offers minimal benefit to young students, regular reading significantly boosts their learning. For book recommendations tailored to middle school students, take a look at our specially curated article .

Ideas for Minimizing Homework

• Limiting Homework Quantity: Adhering to guidelines like the “ 10-minute rule ” (10 minutes of homework per grade level per night) can help ensure that homework does not become overwhelming.
• Quality Over Quantity: Focus on assigning meaningful homework that is directly relevant to what is being taught in class, ensuring it adds value to students’ learning.
• Homework Menus: Offering students a choice of assignments can cater to diverse learning styles and interests, making homework more engaging and personalized.
• Integrating Technology: Utilizing educational apps and online platforms can make homework more interactive and enjoyable, while also providing immediate feedback to students. To gain deeper insights into the role of technology in learning environments, explore our articles discussing the benefits of incorporating technology in classrooms and a comprehensive list of educational VR apps . These resources will provide you with valuable information on how technology can enhance the educational experience.

For teachers who are not ready to fully eliminate homework, these strategies offer a compromise, ensuring that homework supports rather than hinders student learning. By focusing on quality, relevance, and student engagement, educators can transform homework from a chore into a meaningful component of education that genuinely contributes to students’ academic growth and personal development. In this way, we can move towards a more balanced and student-centric approach to learning, both in and out of the classroom.

Useful Resources

• Is homework a good idea or not? by BBC
• The Great Homework Debate: What’s Getting Lost in the Hype
• Alternative Homework Ideas

The evidence and arguments presented in the discussion of why students should not have homework call for a significant shift in homework practices. It’s time for educators and policymakers to rethink and reformulate homework strategies, focusing on enhancing the quality, relevance, and balance of assignments. By doing so, we can create a more equitable, effective, and student-friendly educational environment that fosters learning, well-being, and holistic development.

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• “When school goes home: Some problems in the organization of homework”, APA PsycNet
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• “Epidemic of copying homework catalyzed by technology”, Redwood Bark
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• “Homework and Family Stress: With Consideration of Parents’ Self Confidence, Educational Level, and Cultural Background”, ResearchGate
• “Kids who get moving may also get better grades”, Reuters
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• “Is it time to get rid of homework?”, USAToday
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• “Encouraging Students to Read: Tips for High School Teachers”, wgu.edu
• Recent Posts

Simona Johnes is the visionary being the creation of our project. Johnes spent much of her career in the classroom working with students. And, after many years in the classroom, Johnes became a principal.

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‘This is a job’: Why college players reject the insidious term ‘student athlete’

The NCAA crafted a phrase to describe the unpaid workers who generate billions in revenue every year. But now many of them are fighting back

As the world of college sports finds itself in uncertain times, Danté Stewart is clear about one thing.

“Nothing about college athletics suggests that being a student comes first. So, that language needs to be changed,” says Stewart, a former Clemson football player and author of Shoutin’ In The Fire . “The ‘student-athlete’ is always being limited to being a student rather than a worker.”

Stewart is not alone. In September, Jennifer Abruzzo, general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), issued a memo in which she argued that college athletes should be understood as university employees. Abruzzo took direct aim at the NCAA’s use of the term “student-athlete,” arguing that it has been used to undermine college athletes organizing for employment rights.

“It allows people outside to limit your identity,” adds Stewart. “So people can say you’re just there for athletics. You are seen as someone who should be grateful. You have no say. You’re a student. ‘Student’ is wrapped up in you’re young, you’re dumb, and you need guidance. It strips your agency.”

Objections to the term “student-athlete” are unsurprising given its origins. Walter Byers, executive director of the NCAA from 1951-1987 explained in his memoir : “We crafted the term student-athlete and soon it was embedded in all NCAA rules and interpretations as a mandated substitute for such words as players and athletes.”

The NCAA subsequently used the term for decades in court to counter workers’ compensation claims related to athletes who died or suffered grievous injury while providing athletic services to universities. Byers himself would later call the NCAA system “ a nationwide money-laundering scheme ,” and proclaimed that “the management of intercollegiate athletics stays in place committed to an outmoded code of amateurism … and I attribute that to, quite frankly, to the neo-plantation mentality that exists on the campuses of our country and in the conference offices of the NCAA.”

It is in this context that Abruzzo wrote in her memo that because college athletes “are employees under the Act, misclassifying them as ‘student-athletes’, and leading them to believe that they are not entitled to the Act’s protection, has a chilling effect,” and thus, “I will pursue an independent violation.” Since the memo, the NLRB has already received a filing against the NCAA for use of the term.

Despite this, the NCAA recently released a draft of its new constitution , to be voted on in January, that uses the term “student-athlete” 44 times . It also explicitly clarified that “student-athletes may not be compensated by a member institution for participating in a sport.” Which is to say, when it comes to the $18.9bn generated annually by NCAA universities, that money will not be finding its way into the wallets of the workers who generate it.

Perhaps most remarkably, the NCAA justified the use of “student-athlete” in its new constitution by contending that it was at the “insistence” of the three athlete representatives on the committee of 23. Indeed, according to Daniel Libit’s reporting , Kendall Spencer, a former track and field athlete at New Mexico, said that there was “wide consensus among the thousands of current and former college athletes his group consulted that the term did more good than harm.”

That claim has raised the ire of some college athletes.

“I wonder who they consulted in terms of ‘student-athletes’ to determine that consensus,” mused Jason, a current player player in the power five, the elite level of college football. “The types of individuals that serve in these groups align with the NCAA’s viewpoint rather than that of the majority of their peers.” Or, as Damion, a former power five football player put it, “The SAAC members and that selection process, that’s all selected by the coaching staff. That’s not a fair representation of everyone else’s opinions.”

We talked to 13 current and former players about their reactions to the claim they support the term “student-athlete.” Many athletes we spoke to chose to do so anonymously out of fear of reprisal and have been given pseudonyms to protect their identities. As one athlete explained: “As sad as it sounds I don’t want any backlash from it. I’m still living in their world and they do have control over us.”

Not everyone objected to the term. James, a former power five football player, told us, “The term ‘student-athlete’ was something that I felt was a badge of honor.” That was important, he explained, because “it’s almost as if you have two full time jobs …people that went through that kind of rigorous workload, there is a lot of pride associated with it.”

Brittany Collens, a former UMass tennis player, understands. “‘Student-athlete’ is a term many athletes are proud to embrace not because of what the system offers but as a term recognizing the sacrifice they have made to distinguish themselves apart from others. It’s meant to be a badge of honor.”

What they reveal is how the exploitation of carrying “two full time jobs” with no pay is almost necessarily internalized as a “badge of honor” – which is to say form of identity – because it allows them to cope with the demands. This is at least in part a function of the fact that there is no external recourse through which to process and express these feelings of overwork. Emma, a current division one cross country and track and field athlete, puts it this way, “Even if we athletes are not being compensated, we crave the validation and fulfillment we get from playing the game to the point that we are willing to overlook the nonsensical conditions of our work … As much as the term ‘student-athlete’ is used to mislead us, it also serves to make us feel better.”

That, in turn, is related to the reality that most college athletes are not offered a window into the historical and legal implications of the term.

Andrew Cooper, the co-organizer of #WeAreUnited and United College Athlete Advocates, told us that many athletes “have no idea that the NCAA invented the term ‘student-athlete’ nearly 70 years ago to avoid paying workers’ compensation and how the NCAA leverages it to justify their tax-evasion scheme.” Collens adds, “It’s widely endorsed by college athletes because they don’t understand the implications behind the word.”

That isn’t a coincidence. Universities condition athletes to view the term as a marker of pride divorced from its more insidious applications. As Mikayla, a former division one gymnast, puts it, “athletes are brainwashed from a young age that it’s an honor to be called a ‘student-athlete.’”

Emma explains that we can only understand the perspective of college athletes in the context of “the constant deluge of propaganda from school athletic departments.” What that means is that she “can count on receiving an email from my school’s athletic department every day,” that details academic responsibilities. Moreover, “we have always had to have team meetings with our school compliance officer and athletic director…two hours of being told what an honor it is to be an athlete for the university, how we have such great privilege and responsibility compared to regular students, and a very long list of things we cannot, should not, absolutely will never do because we need to be the perfect representatives of the university. It can be difficult to escape that mindset.”

Given that context, it is little wonder that many of the athletes we talked were surprised about the origins of the term. Luis, a current group of five football player put it this way, “everyone wants to be a ‘student-athlete’ because that is all we knew and were taught to be. We were never taught the real reason for being shielded away from aid and benefits.”

Nearly all the players we spoke to objected to the inclusion of “student-athlete” in the new constitution. Florida Atlantic University football player Andrew Boselli said that “it reduces the rights of college athletes and hides their actual role.” For Luis, “it’s misleading because we are employees. Without us athletes there is no NCAA.” Mikayla added, “the term continues to be used in marketing and in commercials to make the NCAA seem more virtuous than it is.” Former Nebraska golfer Daniel Pearson put it plainly: “the term could not be further from the truth.”

Similarly, Jalen, a current power five football player, explained, “I feel like there should be a better term to use or expand the meaning of ‘student-athlete’ to be closer to ‘employee.’” For Jason, the issue is that he believes “the majority of ‘student-athletes’ do not agree that they are simply students who happen to participate in an extra-curricular activity … It is unquestionable that they are actually employees.” This is why Gavin, a current power five football player, sees the term as “very misleading.” He explained, “Athletics are the priority, and everything else comes second. Schools are more concerned with keeping players eligible, rather than maximizing their academic opportunities.”

Collens was even more forceful: “college athletes do want to be ‘student-athletes’ but they want to be the student athletes the NCAA organization promised them they would be. Not what the reality is. If they understood what it means they wouldn’t want that terminology to represent them. That’s like saying they want to be held from their rights. They’re being fooled through no fault of their own.”

For former Clemson football player Stewart, addressing the problem means addressing the very issue of what it means to be a student in the context of college athletics. “I know people who were athletes and wanted to be students but had to settle short because the classes they wanted to be in got in the way of the athletic demands of the school.”

That mirrored Mikayla’s experience. “Athletes cannot always change degrees if and when they have an interest change, their course loads are all too often decided by what makes them eligible, and class selection is based on what’s available outside of team obligations. That’s not putting the student first. Neither is missing approximately twelve class days per year to travel, compete and represent the university.”

In Pearson’s experience, “The daily grind includes waking up before the sun for workouts, managing to go to class before or after a long practice, finding time to go to the trainer, to eat, and then maybe deciding to do homework if you can possibly keep your eyes open at that point.”

Former UCLA soccer player Kaiya McCullough agrees. “Using the term ‘student-athlete’ frames the discussion of the role of college athletes away from what it is, employment... The reality is that these young athletes are being used for their labor to make money for their respective colleges and the NCAA. Many times in my own career as a college athlete I was forced to make sacrifices in my education for the sake of soccer, as that was the true priority for my time in school. Framing the discussion away from this reality is just another tool the NCAA uses to keep athletes from realizing their worth as employees.”

One of the consequences of not treating athletes as employees is, unlike their coaching and administrator counterparts, they do not have the freedom to seek out opportunities to capitalize on market value. As Damion explained it, unlike players, “From a coach’s perspective, they can pick up, go, and make two times their money and walk out … that just happened with Lincoln Riley at USC .”

With all this in mind, “the real question is whether the NCAA is willing to rethink what they mean by student and athlete,” said Stewart.

And that question cannot reasonably be understood without reckoning with the dynamics of the highest-revenue forms of college sport. Given that in the power five conferences, as of the 2019-2020 season , Black students comprised only 5.7% of the student population, it is notable that they made up 55.9% of men’s basketball players, 55.7% of men’s football, and 48.1% of women’s basketball players.

For Stewart, these figures have everything to do with the persistent use of the term ‘student-athlete’. “When people talk about student athletes they’re not talking about white men, they’re talking about Black men,” he says. “If it was centered on white men, they wouldn’t mind paying them. But because it’s wrapped up in race dynamics, people will always reject it because they don’t want Black athletes to have control and power, because they don’t think they deserve it.”

From the moment Walter Byers and company invented it, the term ‘student-athlete” has always functioned as an instrument of racialized exploitation. Campus athletic workers are starting to notice.

As Gavin put it, “It is silly to try and pretend that we function as regular students who simply participate in an extracurricular activity.

“This is a job.”

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Response to: Athletes should have less homework

Serena Gregory , Contributing Writer October 30, 2014

It is to be heard that many students say teachers should be more lenient on homework with athletes who are currently in a sport or extra-curricular activities. But it was from the beginning the student choice to be involved in that sport or club. It was not a requirement.

Students come to school for a full ride education and part of having these extra activities it is their responsibility to keep their grades up. If students were given less homework while on a sport how would we know if they are really understanding the stuff and focusing more on class than the sport. We wouldn’t because we wouldn’t be able to look back on the homework they weren’t assigned but others were.

If students in sports or clubs were given less homework then what would the teachers do? Create an entire grade book just for the few students in their class! The teachers would be having more work because they would have to keep up with a second system just for those few students. Throughout the amount of classes here at west and how the classes are divided there are athletes spread out all over the place.

Completely school work is more of a challenge if one is involved in a sport but then again it was the student’s choice to be involved. This does not mean that an athlete earns extra work time or less work thrown at them. It doesn’t just affect students but affects the teachers too. How would they know what student gets less work, or how would they know if the student truly understand the subject being taught. And then in the end that student fails, how do you think that makes the teacher feel? That he or she failed themselves because they didn’t accomplish their requirement.

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The Pros and Cons of Homework

Updated: December 7, 2023

Published: January 23, 2020

Homework is a word that most students dread hearing. After hours upon hours of sitting in class , the last thing we want is more schoolwork over our precious weekends. While it’s known to be a staple of traditional schooling, homework has also become a rather divise topic. Some feel as though homework is a necessary part of school, while others believe that the time could be better invested. Should students have homework? Have a closer look into the arguments on both sides to decide for yourself.

Photo by  energepic.com  from  Pexels

Why should students have homework, 1. homework encourages practice.

Many people believe that one of the positive effects of homework is that it encourages the discipline of practice. While it may be time consuming and boring compared to other activities, repetition is needed to get better at skills. Homework helps make concepts more clear, and gives students more opportunities when starting their career .

2. Homework Gets Parents Involved

Homework can be something that gets parents involved in their children’s lives if the environment is a healthy one. A parent helping their child with homework makes them take part in their academic success, and allows for the parent to keep up with what the child is doing in school. It can also be a chance to connect together.

3. Homework Teaches Time Management

Homework is much more than just completing the assigned tasks. Homework can develop time management skills , forcing students to plan their time and make sure that all of their homework assignments are done on time. By learning to manage their time, students also practice their problem-solving skills and independent thinking. One of the positive effects of homework is that it forces decision making and compromises to be made.

4. Homework Opens A Bridge Of Communication

Homework creates a connection between the student, the teacher, the school, and the parents. It allows everyone to get to know each other better, and parents can see where their children are struggling. In the same sense, parents can also see where their children are excelling. Homework in turn can allow for a better, more targeted educational plan for the student.

5. Homework Allows For More Learning Time

Homework allows for more time to complete the learning process. School hours are not always enough time for students to really understand core concepts, and homework can counter the effects of time shortages, benefiting students in the long run, even if they can’t see it in the moment.

6. Homework Reduces Screen Time

Many students in North America spend far too many hours watching TV. If they weren’t in school, these numbers would likely increase even more. Although homework is usually undesired, it encourages better study habits and discourages spending time in front of the TV. Homework can be seen as another extracurricular activity, and many families already invest a lot of time and money in different clubs and lessons to fill up their children’s extra time. Just like extracurricular activities, homework can be fit into one’s schedule.

The Other Side: Why Homework Is Bad

1. homework encourages a sedentary lifestyle.

Should students have homework? Well, that depends on where you stand. There are arguments both for the advantages and the disadvantages of homework.

While classroom time is important, playground time is just as important. If children are given too much homework, they won’t have enough playtime, which can impact their social development and learning. Studies have found that those who get more play get better grades in school , as it can help them pay closer attention in the classroom.

Children are already sitting long hours in the classroom, and homework assignments only add to these hours. Sedentary lifestyles can be dangerous and can cause health problems such as obesity. Homework takes away from time that could be spent investing in physical activity.

2. Homework Isn’t Healthy In Every Home

While many people that think homes are a beneficial environment for children to learn, not all homes provide a healthy environment, and there may be very little investment from parents. Some parents do not provide any kind of support or homework help, and even if they would like to, due to personal barriers, they sometimes cannot. Homework can create friction between children and their parents, which is one of the reasons why homework is bad .

3. Homework Adds To An Already Full-Time Job

School is already a full-time job for students, as they generally spend over 6 hours each day in class. Students also often have extracurricular activities such as sports, music, or art that are just as important as their traditional courses. Adding on extra hours to all of these demands is a lot for children to manage, and prevents students from having extra time to themselves for a variety of creative endeavors. Homework prevents self discovery and having the time to learn new skills outside of the school system. This is one of the main disadvantages of homework.

4. Homework Has Not Been Proven To Provide Results

Endless surveys have found that homework creates a negative attitude towards school, and homework has not been found to be linked to a higher level of academic success.

The positive effects of homework have not been backed up enough. While homework may help some students improve in specific subjects, if they have outside help there is no real proof that homework makes for improvements.

It can be a challenge to really enforce the completion of homework, and students can still get decent grades without doing their homework. Extra school time does not necessarily mean better grades — quality must always come before quantity.

Accurate practice when it comes to homework simply isn’t reliable. Homework could even cause opposite effects if misunderstood, especially since the reliance is placed on the student and their parents — one of the major reasons as to why homework is bad. Many students would rather cheat in class to avoid doing their homework at home, and children often just copy off of each other or from what they read on the internet.

5. Homework Assignments Are Overdone

The general agreement is that students should not be given more than 10 minutes a day per grade level. What this means is that a first grader should be given a maximum of 10 minutes of homework, while a second grader receives 20 minutes, etc. Many students are given a lot more homework than the recommended amount, however.

On average, college students spend as much as 3 hours per night on homework . By giving too much homework, it can increase stress levels and lead to burn out. This in turn provides an opposite effect when it comes to academic success.

The pros and cons of homework are both valid, and it seems as though the question of ‘‘should students have homework?’ is not a simple, straightforward one. Parents and teachers often are found to be clashing heads, while the student is left in the middle without much say.

It’s important to understand all the advantages and disadvantages of homework, taking both perspectives into conversation to find a common ground. At the end of the day, everyone’s goal is the success of the student.

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Paychecks, Drafts and Firings: The Possible Future of College Sports

National Labor Relations Board testimony, now in the hands of a judge, could have wide-ranging consequences — positive and negative — for athletes and their institutions.

By Billy Witz

Reporting from Los Angeles

As Elijah Higgins sat on a witness stand last week, he detailed the similarities between his experience last season as a rookie tight end for the Arizona Cardinals and the four years he had spent playing football at Stanford University.

Five or six days a week at each level of play, he was immersed in football activities: lifting weights, practice, film study, physical therapy and playing games. There is travel on charter jets. Free tickets for friends and relatives. Robust coaching staffs setting rules.

There are some differences, Higgins allowed. In the National Football League, there are no classes to attend, though at Stanford, he said, academics took a back seat to football, which is why he still has a few classes to take before earning his bachelor’s degree in psychology.

The only other distinction is that, in contrast to Stanford, he now earns a paycheck. The minimum salary in the N.F.L. last season was $750,000.

Higgins said that at Stanford, in an environment where critical thinking was encouraged, he had begun to consider how money drove what he called the college football “system,” where even at an elite university like Stanford, the pursuit of academics was encouraged only so long as it did not interfere with football.

“I do agree with the fact that college football players are employees without status,” he said.

Higgins was the last of about two dozen witnesses who had testified over the last five months in a National Labor Relations Board hearing that bears wide-ranging consequences for a narrow question: Should football players, and basketball players, at the University of Southern California be classified as employees?

The case may not be decided for many months. But it will almost certainly end up in an appeals court, which is why there is such a voluminous record: 3,040 pages of transcripts from 21 days of testimony, along with more than 150 exhibits.

The record is so enormous that Eleanor Laws, the presiding administrative law judge who will determine how the National Labor Act applies to those players, granted lawyers an additional nine weeks to file their closing written arguments, which will now be due by July 31.

The charges have been brought by the N.L.R.B.’s general counsel on behalf of Ramogi Huma, the executive director of the National College Players Association, which advocates for college athletes’ rights. The defendants are U.S.C. along with the Pac-12 Conference and the N.C.A.A., which may have to classify athletes at member universities as employees even though the board has jurisdiction only over private institutions.

The testimony was often dry, and the hearing, which closed on Thursday, drew little attention as rafts of lawyers — as many as 16 at times — haggled over picayune details of control and compensation and whether athletes had actually been given the U.S.C. student-athlete handbook. (Though U.S.C. generated $212 million in athletic department revenue in the 2022-23 fiscal year, that is not relevant to the case, only that there is compensation and control.)

At times, the elasticity of reasonable arguments was tested.

For example, Jacob Vogel, the U.S.C. marching band director, spent more than three hours discussing with boundless enthusiasm the intricate details of his program, including how band members got dressed before football games.

The argument that playing football was little different from playing the tuba then came under cross-examination from Amanda Laufer, the lead lawyer for the general counsel, who asked how many of the 300 band members had no prior musical experience.

“About 10 to 15,” Vogel said.

“No further questions,” Laufer said, satisfied that she had provided a distinction with the football team.

The case is one of several fronts in the assault on the amateur model of college athletics. Emboldened state attorneys general have chipped away at the N.C.A.A.’s rule-making authority. Antitrust lawsuits that could force universities to pay out billions in damages are working their way through the courts. And last month, the Dartmouth men’s basketball team voted to unionize after winning the right to be classified as employees, a decision the college is appealing.

The N.C.A.A. is looking for relief from Congress, but any hope for an antitrust exemption is unlikely to come until after the presidential election — if at all.

The arguments before Judge Laws lay out contrasting visions of what college sports might look like if athletes were employees.

One is apocalyptic. The other is sanguine.

Teresa Gould, the newly appointed commissioner of the Pac-12 Conference, which is losing 10 of its member universities to other conferences by August, including U.S.C., which is leaving for the Big Ten, testified that high school football stars could be subject to a draft. She also argued that poor play — say a point guard who committed too many turnovers — might lead not to the player’s being benched but to his or her being fired.

Sonja Stills, the commissioner of the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference, testified that her collection of historically Black — and historically underfunded — colleges and universities “can’t afford paying out students,” who in turn wouldn’t be able to afford college if their scholarships were taxed as income. She expected Olympic sports to be axed if money had to be redirected to athletes. Women’s sports could also be imperiled, she said.

And Anastasios Kaburakis, the founder of a company that helps international athletes find opportunities to play at American colleges, described how many of those athletes would be shut out by having to obtain work visas in the United States.

Those cataclysmic assessments were waved away by another witness: Liam Anderson, a distance runner at Stanford, who characterized them as “fear mongering.” He said that not every athlete should be considered an employee and that universities would adjust — much as they have as market forces have affected big-time college sports through so-called name, image and likeness payments that are often made through booster-funded collectives .

And if college football players and players in men’s and women’s basketball could be paid as employees?

“I’d celebrate that outcome,” said Anderson, who served two years as co-president of Stanford’s student-athlete advisory committee.

Anderson’s testimony was among the more compelling during the hearing, which took place in a conference room in a nondescript office building in West Los Angeles.

Anderson described staying at the same Las Vegas hotel last year during the N.C.A.A. tournament as the Arkansas men’s basketball team. A security guard told Anderson his job was to ensure that players did not leave their rooms — a sign of control that buttressed testimony from former U.S.C. football players, who said they had been required to check in for meals with fingerprint scans and to text photos to anonymous attendance checkers to prove they were in class.

A loophole in the board’s byzantine rules allowed Anderson and Higgins, neither of whom attended U.S.C., to testify — even after the general counsel had exhausted its list of witnesses. Because the N.C.A.A. had called upon athletes from other universities to testify, the general counsel was able to call rebuttal witnesses who also did not attend U.S.C.

Opposing lawyers did not know who would be testifying until a witness took the stand, a procedure that protects witnesses in fair labor cases from intimidation. This often set off a flurry of computer searches by lawyers with sometimes only 30 minutes or so before cross-examination.

In the case of Anderson, that led to his being pressed by Daniel Nash, the lead lawyer for the Pac-12, to explain statements he had made in The Stanford Daily that were at odds with his testimony, including an instance in which he had called the idea of paying college athletes an “obvious financial impossibility” in a 2021 op-ed piece .

“My views on this have evolved,” Anderson said.

Lauren Herstik contributed reporting.

The Liberty Champion

The official student newspaper of Liberty University

Is Homework Really Necessary?

Did you get all your homework done?

We’ve all heard that phrase one too many times before, and now it triggers your fight-or-flight response. Every waking thought is about an assignment you should be doing or that project you really should start but you just can’t bring yourself to face it. Is all this homework really necessary?  

Unfortunately, it just might be. Is the homework itself the problem, or is it the amount we end up with after classes are over for the day and your bed is looking really comfy? To figure all this out we have to remember why we get homework in the first place and what school would be like without it.  

In the very early 1900s, homework was actually considered unhealthy for children and was classified as child labor because it interfered with their ability to do chores around the house. The U.S. Department of Education called homework a tool for “boosting educational quality” when it was reinstated, and it became mandatory in 1986 after being rejected for so long, as recorded by the University of San Diego.  

It’s always good to look at the pros and cons of something when deciding how you feel about it. So, what does homework do for us? Quite a few things actually.  

First let’s address the elephant in the room. No one enjoys homework unless you’re a camp and outdoor adventure leadership (COAL) major. We all have something we would rather spend our time on; that’s just the way it is.  

However, when that test rolls around, most of us are glad we stayed late at the library until we understood what we were reading. According to the University of San Diego, students only absorb 50% of what they hear in a class lecture. If that’s all you had to learn from, keeping your GPA above a 3.5 would be considered a superpower.  

Whether we like it or not, homework helps us retain important information and truly grasp the concepts we are studying. Hearing about it once from your professor is great, but life as a college student is so busy that your chances of remembering everything you heard in all of your classes are next to none. Repetition is the key to retention, and other than experience training, studying the material you were given and doing your homework is how you’re going to graduate.  

Then why is it such a problem? Why is it affecting people so negatively? No degree is worth your mental health; it’s time to look at the cons of homework.  

I believe the real problem with homework is the amount of it. Yes, we need it to learn, but our brains can only handle so much at a time. Oftentimes the standard college workload demands that we push our minds past the limit or face a late penalty. This is what causes the exhaustion and resentment that we constantly push through for the sake of good grades and gold chords.  

 Studies conducted by the American Psychological Association and the U.S. Department of Health say shorter study sessions per day and more consistency over a longer period of time is the best way to retain information while not pushing yourself to your mental limit. However, there is so much to be done that studying for a mere three hours a day isn’t even practical.  

Students would actually be able to study in a healthy way and retain information long term if we were not assigned and asked to complete in one week what psychological studies say should take at least two.   

So, to answer the question: Yes, homework is definitely necessary. The real problem is how much we are required to process in such a short time.   

As finals inch closer by the day, make a point to take care of your mind and give yourself breaks not only while studying but also from other things that can cloud your brain like social media. Coping with huge workloads is a process, so make lists, take deep breaths and get to bed on time. We’re gonna make it; I promise.  

Barber is the off-campus news editor for the Liberty Champion

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Too much homework? New CA bill aims to ease the load on students

Having less homework would be beneficial for some students like Kyan Vanderweel, a San Luis Obispo high school student.

With multiple band and orchestra practices a day, on top of taking AP classes, Vanderweel finds it difficult to balance the things he loves to do with what he needs to get done, saying it even affects his mental health.

“AP classes should have homework but only a limited amount but in my opinion, I don’t think English classes apart from reading should have any unnecessary homework,” Vanderweel said.

Vanderweel says his homework and classwork are very repetitive and he feels it's unnecessary to do some of the homework.

“By the end of the day, we already know what we're doing so I feel like it’s a waste of time to an extent,” Vanderweel said.

Other students feel like homework in high school is bearable.

“I think I'm pretty comfortable with how it is right now,” San Luis Obispo High School student Tamiyah Murrieta said.

The "Healthy Homework Act,” introduced by Assemblywoman Pilar Schiavo, would not ban homework altogether but would require local school boards and educational agencies to establish policies that consider impacts on students’ physical and mental health with input from parents, teachers and students.

This is something Tyler Gerbel, a San Luis Obispo high school student, says could impact some students.

“Homework has been shown to stress students out a little bit. I’ve felt that myself when I have so much work to do,” Gerbel said.

Although he thinks his workload is manageable right now, he understands how some might have it harder.

“If something is done to limit the homework it might relieve stress off of students and I feel like mental health is a very important thing for students today,” Gerbel said.

The bill is also tailored to people who might not have access to resources at home like high-speed internet.

The bill would require the adopted policy to be updated at least once every five years.

It is currently making its way through the State Legislature.

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