Introduction
Many students at Lafayette are involved in sports as well as academics for school. Lafayette has a myriad of both sports teams and AP college courses available to students. Many students wanting to improve their chances of going to college take AP courses and participate in a sport. Students have to prioritize between going to practice every day or completing their AP homework assignments and can easily become overwhelmed with the amount of work they put into their education and into their sport. So the question remains, should teachers assign tests on game days?

Stress

70% of students take AP courses in high school according to collegetransitions a website that gives students a practical understanding of why school and sports can be stressful. That means that 70% of students might be experiencing some level of stress. With the workload, practices, and social lives, you can see how a student can be overwhelmed. Trying to balance enjoying high school and succeeding in academics could be difficult for students participating in a sports team. When asked about the stress level of being on a sports team and being a student, Baseball player Isaiah Emmons believes that he is “No, not really [stressed]” He says that “as long as I can get everything done when it needs to be done then I’m good.”
It is a lot when teachers assign tests on game days. According to Lafeyette’s sports calendar, Wednesdays are the best days for tests because there are rarely any sports activities that day. There is a wide range of games throughout the week and many teachers assign tests during that time. According to the American Psychology Association, American teens suffer more from stress than the average adult does. So how does an AP course or sports team play into this?

Time
Many students have lives outside of school: They have family dinners, dates, and hangouts with friends. As you can imagine, they probably won’t have time for these things if they are participating in sports and AP classes. Managing your time between your school, family, and social lives can be a lot for anyone to handle.

Volleyball Coach Chris Langston touches on the value of students learning to manage their time, a skill possibly needed to become successful as an adult. “I think one of the challenges of being a student athlete is to have to manage your time….” Langston continues, “I have a lot of pre-engineering students that play basketball or volleyball for me and they struggle with having to stay up at night doing their chemistry.”

Declining Grades
If students have practice after school every day, cramming in studying afterwards might be a challenge. After practice, most students will most likely be exhausted and won’t feel like studying. If students have a test on Thursday and a game on Friday night, they won’t have time to study for a test because they will be practicing for the game. The student will most likely get a lower than average grade on the test after a hard day’s work of practice.

Conclusion
In conclusion, students should not have to take tests on game days. The problem with this statement is that there are many games throughout the week. Teachers could not choose one day to assign tests because the game days vary each week. Instead of making tests one day a week for all students, teachers should look at the Lafayette calendar to see which days there are no games for that week. After looking at the calendar, they should choose the day with no sports events to administer the test. On a typical week, Wednesdays are the best days for tests to be assigned because there are not a lot of sports games after school that day.

Due to the level of stress, time in a day and declining grades, taking tests on game days could easily have a negative impact on the students’ well being. Yes, they might have chosen to take four AP classes along with being on a sports team, but for most students, this amount of stress can be overwhelming. Yes, tests should be administered in every class in the year but they should not be administered on days where students have sports games.