“I’m sorry have you tried working 30 hours a week with school and homework?” tweets Silda Romero.

At Lake Mary High School, a student posted a tweet that said, “If you’re not a student-athlete you have no idea what being ‘tired’ really is.” This led to uproar from working students and students enrolled in rigorous classes. Students responded with tweets such as “Try working 2 jobs while maintaining a 4.8 GPA and then get back to me on that.”

Senior Kate Torres says, “I think it’s offensive, because it’s basically putting student athletes on a tier that says they should be worshiped for playing a sport. Many students take multiple AP classes and are in many clubs, like myself, and don’t have the time to participate in a sport, so it dismisses their academic accomplishments.”

Programs available at Seminole such as the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IB), Heath Academy, and Advanced Placement Program include a heavy workload. AP classes are shown to have at least 30 percent more work than regular classes and IB students are shown to have 37.5 percent more intense workload.

Maintaining a job while being a full-time student requires the mastery of time management. The hours that a student employee is available to work aren’t always available and commute time must be factored in. Students involved in On-the-Job Training (OJT) must set up transportation to get home if they leave early. Similarly, students participating in the Dual Enrollment program must arrange transportation to school if they don’t have a 1st period and to any after school engagements if they leave school early.

Senior Nia Dudley, a participant in Dual Enrollment, states, “Travelling really does wear me down, sometimes I feel like I basically live in my car.”

Student athletes typically practice on campus and don’t have to analyze traffic and different routes and most school sports teams also ride buses to away games. The activity bus is also an option to assist athletes with transportation.

Senior Matthew Mataras states, “To truly compare student athletes and students involved in rigorous courses including IB you have to try and look at it as an evaluation of talent. Student athletes are talented at the sport they play, [while] IB and AP students are talented in the classroom setting. Their practice field is the classroom and their game day is on test day. As for student employees, they also face mental strain and physical strain depending on the job at hand. All 3 fields are very different but connect to the same concepts of hard work and commitment. I greatly respect any student that is involved in any activity that puts a strain on their physical or mental strength.”