What If: You Could Be a Part Time Senior and Play Sports

Around 87 percent of seniors are working while attending high school. Within this percent, over 50 percent of them are actively involved in two or more extracurricular activities such as clubs, sports, or actively apart of volunteer services. These students who strive to be actively involved are typically given terrible sleep schedules in return. With the KSHSAA rules being students must be enrolled in at least five classes to participate in extracurriculars such as StuCo or sports. So, what if seniors could be part time, taking as little as three classes, while still being allowed to be involved in their extracurriculars? These students would be allotted more time for work and their outside of school dedications. High school students who hold a job and are involved in clubs and sports are more likely to move on to a higher education than those not as involved. So why put a limit on extracurriculars just to force the student to attend at least the five classes to be eligible to be involved in those extracurriculars? For students to even be eligible to be a part time student, they must have enough credits to graduate. If they have taken all credits to graduate and have a certain GPA these students would benefit tremendously from only having to attended three classes a day. These students would work in the morning and then go to school the last three or four hours of the day and then head to sports practice of club meetings. They would be given more time to strive in other areas of interest because they have already proven themselves and received the amount of credits needed to graduate by the end of their senior year. With these kids being so involved they would have more time to save for college by working, given more family time and a better sleep schedule. By forcing these involved students to attend a minimum of five classes, they can’t commit as much of their time to extracurriculars, families and sleep.