Student Workers

Is the paycheck worth it?

Students struggle to balance work and school

By Nicole Watson

Senior Jacqueline Lacquesta was working at Popeyes in August of 2021. Towards the end of her shift, a man came to the register and threatened to pull a knife on her.

“I was scared for my life, I thought I was going to die.” Lacquesta said.

Lacquesta was already growing frustrated with the challenges of maintaining a job as well as school. This incident ended up being the final straw, as she quit the following day.

In the 2020-2021 school year, many AHS students had synchronous class only until 12:30 p.m. which allowed more time in the day for other pursuits, like part-time work. However, with the return to in-person learning this school year students with jobs are finding it challenging to balance thier schoolwork and their jobs.

Senior Jacob Deleon had his job at Carl’s Jr. in Alameda since the beginning of quarantine and worked an average of 36 hours a week without being informed that minors are legally only allowed to work 20 hours per week. He mentioned that during the short period of time while he was working during school days he didn’t have enough time to finish any of his assignments and would often turn them in late.

“It was very stressful and overbearing trying to juggle my work life and my school life, as I was working a lot of hours already and I had no time at night, which is when I do my homework and when I came back from work I would be too tired to even do things so I always had a rough time to do anything for school.” Deleon said.

Senior Shane Dass moved to Sacramento over quarantine, but decided to move to Dublin to be closer to AHS, as it is his last year at this school. He not only lives far from school, but his work is in the comple opposite direction of his house. He tries to finish all of his work at school so that he doesn’t have to worry about it later.

Senior counselor Shannon Bode believes students should work in high school, as it builds character and responsibility. She points out the pros of working, like making money to save for their own personal use or helping their families. For cons, she mentions that it takes time away from homework and extracurricular activities, like sports. She noticed that many students last year worked more during remote learning due to the free time they had and some families had financial restraints in which students helped to support their families.

“Sometimes works takes presidents over academics” Bode said.

As this year goes by, Dass is unsure whether or not he wants to stay at his job, due to the time commitment. The owner is also not doing anything to help with this but let the time slide. ”Sometimes I feel unsure because of how late we stay for some night, some of our customers don’t leave until 30 minutes after we closed, so we have to wait that extra time for them, and I always ask my manager if we are legally allowed to tell them, “hey our store is closing in like 10 minutes”, to give them a hint because im trying to go home to do my assignments” Dass said.

Illustration by Thinh Huynh & Nicole Watson