With the multitude of activities that DGN offers, it is no surprise that students take advantage of the opportunities by being involved in many activities. Activities often take place well into the night, and students can struggle with maintaining their school work alongside their extracurriculars despite after school time being a necessity as there is no in-school time for team sports or activities.
“For a lot of kids you have to balance, you have to see how little time you have and manage,” social studies teacher Lois Graham said, “For anything athletic you definitely stay late, but that goes with the territory. You have to practice 2-3 hours at least.”
The demands of staying late after school can often seep into the homework time for students with a consistent amount of work every night. According to nationwidechildrens.org (a website dedication to pediatric healthcare and research) the average teen needs nine and a half hours of sleep a night, activities and homework can cut into this valuable resting time.
“I stay late for about three activities, speech and winterguard usually require I stay the latest,” senior Emily Grigg said “I get home at 9:30, 9:45 at night most of the time, and by 11:45 I can get all of my homework done.”
Possible problems with staying late for activities also result for the lack of time that students have for meals and rest before taking part in an activity for the duration of the night.
“I don’t have a lunch this year as well so I don’t eat during the day. Usually I sometimes bring a snack or I’ll just wait until I get home, which I know is really unhealthy when I go the entire day without eating,” junior Emma Segrest said.
The school grounds are also a barrier for how late students stay at school as a strict schedule involving field/gym/auditorium time needs to be followed so that every activity does have time to practice.
“If there were more facilities it wouldn’t be as much of a problem. For the marching band they start late since the field is used by football, so they get the field later. Soccer, boys and girls, has to stay late since they need field space for all they do,” Graham said.
Extensive changes to the school grounds is one of the options for solving the issues of space.
“Expanding the school would be a solution. There has been some talk about redoing the buildings, and you can see there has been some improvement. But there’s been a lack of foresight years ago to buy up property around the building when it was available to expand the physical ground,” Graham said.
There are schedules in place to better monitor the availability of space in the school, and students who have rigorous classes as well as activities must manage their time efficiently.
“Some kids have a study hall, some kids don’t have a study hall or lunches. But some kids just tend to manage. What I find is that students who are involved in more activities manage their time better. They tend to see where they have time in their schedule to work and get things done,” Graham said.
Activities are a student’s choice, and choosing to balance school work with extracurriculars is part of the high school experience.
“I don’t think I would change anything, I like how it goes. I like my activities that I do. Sometimes I wish there wasn’t as much work, which is also a factor on my part because I do chose to take those harder classes,” Segrest said.