Students that work outside of school have to balance many things, their school life, their home life, and social life, and at EPHS students handle school and work life in many different ways.

Working can impact both a student’s life and schooling.

“Honestly sometimes because I work a lot on the weekends and sometimes during breaks, so if I have big projects or something it is kind of hard to manage, because I don’t have time during my job to do homework, so a little bit, but I would say that I time manage it,” senior Yaya Gonzales said.

Work can also impact a students schedule and the amount of time for themselves.

“I would say that definitely I was worried about what classes I was going to take this year, like if I would have time with dance and work and everything, but for my personal schedule it definitely affects it because sometimes I can’t make plans at all because I have work,” Yaya said.

Other students believe that working a job now provides them with valuable experience for what jobs they may want in the future. 

“I am interested in cosmetology, so it’s going to benefit and help me in my future career plans. As well as helping me manage my money and letting me have experience for my personal business in the future,” sophomore Dafnee Ontiveros said.

Many teachers have seen the impacts having a job can have on students.

“It’s a positive as far as teaching students about time management, discipline, and multitasking by making you think about both work and school. It could negatively affect students because students are using their time in other ways instead of studying. But if we are being honest students may have to work to provide for their families and stuff like that,” Math teacher and tennis assistant coach, Jesus Loya said. 

Mr. Loya had his own experience with working jobs while in high school and argues that these jobs benefitted him academically.

“I mean if anything, I feel like it motivated me to try harder, because I thought to myself that I don’t want to work at a pizza place for the rest of my life. So, it gave me experience, and I thought well, this is cool, but I don’t want to do this forever, so I’m going to focus on school,” Loya said.  

While some teachers support having a job during high school others argue that a job can cause extra stress for a student who might already be struggling.

 “If the student is struggling already with their classes and they don’t have a job, I would recommend them not to get a job, because that’s another responsibility added to them, and if they can’t keep up with their grades without having a job, then I would not get one,” AP psychology and social studies teacher, Joanna Rivera said. “If they traditionally have, you know, good grades and all of that, then absolutely take it on. It helps them with responsibility. It helps them kind of establish relationships outside of school and it helps them get money for college.” 

Ultimately whether a student should have a job during high school depends on the student and their situation. 

“I think it’s a balance of both, some students aren’t able to balance a job and their education, so parents should kind of get to know their kids and know if they are able to balance that out, and if they are able, if they are responsible, I think it’s a positive thing since they are able to get a lot of responsibilities from working, but they still have to balance out school, so I would say it’s a positive thing,” Mrs. Rivera said.