“Dude, did you finish the work?” is heard throughout the hallways and in classrooms, four out of five days a week.

Tracy High School is filled with hardworking students that are willing to do whatever it takes to be successful. Whether a student must cancel plans with loved ones or bail on school-related activities to finish assignments in all classes, is a little unfair.

As school staff members claim that grades demonstrate the determination in students in achieve their educational goals, the amount of work combined is absurd.

According to Tracy High School’s Homework Policy, it reads “Per night, 9-12 students will typically average two hours of homework.” A student should take about two hours on assignments from all six to seven classes. This is not true for most of the students who attend Tracy High.

Kaylee Harvey is a senior who attends seven classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Harvey takes four International Baccalaureate classes and one Advanced Placement class. While Harvey strives to build up her career in the future, she does admit that the road to get there is hard.

When looking for a job, Harvey figured a tutoring position would be a nonstrenuous way to earn money without overwhelming hours. Harvey is a math tutor at Mathnasium, working eight hours a week. Harvey claims to comprehend math easily; working hard and paying attention is still needed with difficult concepts. To some, that might not be a busy week, but to Kaylee, it could get hard trying to balance schoolwork with a job.

Kaylee Harvey reveals that having mostly IB classes could be in fact overwhelming, with or without her job. Many times, Harvey must wake up before the birds start to sing, to finish work that she was not able to finish.

It is crazy how students must not only spend their rest of their day doing school work, but continue to do so the next morning.

I agree with the Governing Board that homework is a responsibility for us students, but it is also our sense of responsibility to take care of our health.

A new, improved homework policy should be enforced; one that is reasonable for all Tracy High School students.