Almost all students have excessive amounts of homework, especially at Plymouth South High School. Students go home and have to complete hours of homework every single night. That much homework gets in the way of valuable time that should be spent with family or getting a proper amount of sleep.

Students getting too much homework is a problem because it causes them to lose sleep and valuable time with other important people in their life. I think I can speak for many students at PSHS when I say that every night, I am slammed with homework. Oftentimes, I am awake far into the night trying to complete all of my homework by the time it’s due. This causes me to get an unhealthy amount of sleep. For me, a normal day after school is going to a sports practice, and then coming home to hole up in my room doing homework for hours. I rarely have time to spend with my family or just relax for a few minutes. Another issue with this is at Plymouth South, all students are encouraged to join a sports team or club which is great… except when you have too much homework. As a 3-sport athlete and student council member, I am truly thankful for the way PSHS pushes their students to be involved, but it is extremely draining when I spend 7 hours a day at school, then have to go straight to practice and then home to start my homework with no breaks. One last thing that makes homework difficult is having a job. As a high school student, many people who don’t play a sport work after school. We are responsible for paying for things like school parking passes, gas, and sometimes other events that we want to do with our friends. All high schoolers want money but it’s hard to juggle school work, sports, and a job all at the same time.

Now I understand that banning homework altogether may be unrealistic, so in order to solve this problem, teachers should reduce the amount of homework given. This could look like only being allowed to assign one assignment at a time or giving us longer time periods to complete the assignments. Many people believe homework helps students, but from my experience I believe that it adds unnecessary stress to students’ lives.