Part-time Jobs Have Positive, Negative Effects on School Work

To the Editor: 
Some kids can handle a part-time job, and some kids can’t. It’s getting out of hand. Many businesses can’t survive without the availability of high school boys and girls to man their shops. Many managers don’t give a hoot about what damage is being done to the kid’s grades because of all the time that youthful employee is putting on the clock.
Parents can still be proud of a kid who does well in school and still works a reasonable number of hours after school. It shows that there is a little enterprise. It gives a kid a chance to learn a little about how to handle money. Kids learn something about people. 
Nothing is wrong with having a little folding money to call your own.
But too many kids are working in order to handle big time stuff like car payments, auto insurance and maintenance, and high-fashion designer duds, not to mention booze and marijuana. Work becomes a priority. School work takes a backseat.  Kids rely on homeroom, study halls, and cheating to get by when it comes to academics. Many begin right after school and go until closing. Parents write excuse notes for lateness and absences because their kids are too tired to get up in the morning and go to school.
There should be an assembly program at the start of each school year to discuss the pros and cons concerning part-time jobs and their effects on school work.
I worked part-time when I was a kid, like many of my buddies. Bosses restricted our hours. We were mostly weekend help. As a soda jerk in B&G’s Hoagie Shop, I was allowed to study during slow periods and still get paid. There was a sense among business owners that one’s future earnings as an educated adult meant more than one’s transient earnings as a kid.
We never worked enough hours or made enough dough to be on the books. Giving us jobs was more a favor than the necessity it is today for businesses to survive.