School Day Benefits

Imagine going to school all day long just to come home at night and rush around to get your homework done, still having to go to practice later that night. Exhausting right? Well some schools in the United States feel that extending the school day will have an immense positive impact on society. But being in school longer robs students of their opportunity to bond with their family, and adds an economic burden to the district. Money can be a huge issue for schools if they are not careful about what they spend it on. Adding as much as an hour onto the school day can be a large economic burden for the school. Extending the amount of hours students are at school would also require the staff to work an extra 182 hours per year, which is the equivalent

Aside from the financial burden, there is also a social cost. Adding more time to the day can take away the quality time that children would have spent with their family. Over 36 million students ages five to eighteen play an organized sport and 60% of these play a sport outside of school (“Youth Sports Statistics” Statistic Brain Research Institute). Not only do students have extracurricular activities they attend, but, according to the survey taken by Samantha Srainburn, the average high school student gets about 17.5 hours of homework each week. This would cause stress for students and even parents who have less time to prepare and share meals, enjoy leisure activities and recharge for the next day. Some teenagers also have a job that they have to be at. How do they expect these students to fit another hour or so into their busy day? Having no time would also mean less time with their family. The only quality time they would have to spend with their family would be in the car on the way to another commitment. Doing this can cause a family to drift farther and farther apart from each other. Running around all week, stressing to get homework done, trying to find time to study, or even eat a good dinner are all things that would be altered all because of just the smallest amount of extra time spent at school. Not only would this add stress to families, but it would also rob students of their opportunity to get together with friends. The Mental Health Foundation claims that “friends form one of the foundations of our ability to cope with problems that life throws at us.” Being with a friend can also force you to be yourself and become more comfortable with who you are. Adding stress to students’ lives and making their schedule more and more constricting can take away students opportunities to develop and interact socially, recover from stress and bond with family, friends and