Almost every day student athletes at Lakeland High School get pulled out of class early to participate in their sport activities of choice. With games or events taking place almost every day, many students are missing chunks of school.

Usually when students miss school they get caught behind on assignments and learning in the classroom. 

Golf is one sport that misses a lot of school. Athletes that participate in golf have to miss whole days of school to play the sport. Students will tend to opt out of certain games of golf to not miss school. 

Tennis also takes students out of the school environment frequently. Matches occur once or twice a week usually pulling players out of school an hour or two early.

Track also takes students out of the classroom. Lots of students take part in their meets. 

With students being pulled out of class near the end of the day, most students tend to miss later periods in the day and it can cause some problems for teachers.

Jennifer Casas, a teacher at Lakeland High School stated, “Scheduling can, and has, been affected since sports pulls students out by 5th and 6th periods, so the content that gets covered in those classes can be off track compared to others.”

One student athlete, Brady Hanna, who participates in both golf and tennis, stated, “I miss lots of my sixth period classes. It can be quite hard to complete all the make-up work and still keep up with the new work.” 

Student athletes can sometimes struggle with the workload of school that they missed, their normal school and their sport with games and practice. 

“I will say that the majority of my athletes work really hard to keep up with assignments and studying during the little down time they have and I am really proud of these students for their commitment to be good at what they do,” stated Casas. 

One obvious solution would be to push back athletics until later in the day. Unfortunately, with some sporting activities it sometimes isn’t possible to do.