Every student at Eaton High knows the feeling of homework crashing down on them. The feeling of never escaping the mess of worksheets, sticky notes, novel pages, and math problems. The RedInk staff knows this feeling very well, and want to allow the students a chance to speak out. 

       90 students were represented through an anonymous survey about homework load and the consequences of too much. The survey concluded that 81.7 percent  of students have a stress level higher than seven on a scale of one to ten. And 89.5 percent of students said they get most of their homework from the Language Arts department. 

    One anonymous student said, “The English department needs to realize that kids have homework in other classes, and when they do the homework, they just do it to get it done. They are not really getting anything out of it.” It has become obvious to some, though, that Language Arts may not be the root of the problem. 

    Students said the load from the English department would not be as overwhelming if coordination was made among the teachers.

      Another anonymous student said, “There are occasions that I do feel like the homework load is appropriate, but there are other times I am overwhelmed and stressed. I definitely feel like there are weeks when I am drowning in homework and I can barely manage it. Then there are those weeks where hardly anything is happening in my classes. I am a good student that tries to stay on top of my homework and I never have late assignments but there are plenty of late nights spent where I am frustrated by the amount of homework I have.” 

According to the survey, 94.7 percent of students have more than an hour of homework every night. The amount of time spent doing homework after school can be detrimental to many at Eaton High due to the fact that so many students are involved in extracurriculars. 81.6 percent of the students who took the survey are involved in extracurriculars. Meaning 81.6 percent of the students have less time after school to get homework completed. 

Not only is there the issue of not having enough time to complete the work, but some of the most committed students will stay up late into the night to get their homework done. 

This can overall affect how the students perform throughout the school day and during their extracurriculars. 

One anonymous student said, “I have 0 free time between balancing homework, softball, and school. I’ll have to stay up until one or two some nights because I know I have to go to work or I have a game the next day, and that lack of sleep affects my performance in my other events.”   

              Another said, “I become so stressed because after school I have work until late at night so when I get home I have to do homework then take a shower and go to bed. It’s a bummer because I get really no sleep and it’s hard to concentrate at school and sit in a classroom. But, the process of my schedule goes on and on.”

It is no secret that Eaton High School has some extremely committed students, but in the long run, it is all about the kids. They all have lives outside of school, and sometimes the load of homework can really affect different aspects of their day-to-day routine. Such as sleep schedule, employment, or extracurriculars. 

One anonymous student said, “[Teachers should] communicate with other teachers to at least get some ideas of what we are doing in other classes. That way, multiple classes won’t be having a huge homework load in the same week. I’m not saying to know their whole schedule, just to know if they are having any big projects going on.”

 The homework load would be bearable if students didn’t have projects and tests in multiple classes at the same time. Coordination among teachers may be the factor to student success in high school.