The problem I face after school lies with finding a balance between my team commitment and my overload of homework. When I attended my first day of preseason, I knew the commitment that I was making and accepted it without a fuss. This commitment sacrifices three hours of homework every night of the week. Along with this, each teacher can give their class up to 45 minutes of homework every night, and some history teachers exceed that. I’m not complaining with this issue, as I knew the commitment I was making attending the academically challenging school and joining the JV soccer team, but why can’t my school make it a bit easier for everyone. I understand how the physical education department expects a commitment, and you are right, as a school sport team definitely requires one, but at what level and at what cost. A balance between schoolwork and soccer practice must be made, as it affects the outcome of schoolwork of the whole team. My school needs to find a way to keep long practices to ensure a well-fit and practiced team, and the ability to complete the long hours of homework in a reasonable hour. While it is possible to finish homework after soccer practice at the moment now, sleep deprivation of less than eight hours a night every night of the week is proven to decrease the level of participation and work.


My solution to this problem is to make practices 45 minutes after school and have a four o’clock bus come everyday for sports teams. All students on a sports team will have H period free every day, adding up to 1:30 hours of practice. If for example you have a fall sport but not a winter sport, your gym period would be changed to another period that you have a free for every other day. Therefore, the only people having H period frees will be practicing. This also saves two hours of homework time and the avoidance of a tedious lecture in bio before practice begins for two hours or so. The physical education department will be completely safe in this transaction, and can suffer no damage from the academic side of the school. Also, if parents send in complaints about sleep deprivation issues for kids on sports teams, the school will immediately blame the physical education department. With my effective solution, you are safe as you have adapted as much as possible to the school schedule, and can therefore pass the complaint along to the schedule makers.