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Teenagers today experience a myriad of benefits from competing in sports in public schools, from developing camaraderie and team building to honing physical and personal skills. Athletes discover the challenges of both winning and defeat as well.

With the many benefits, however, teens competing in high school sporting events must simultaneously balance athleticism with the potential dangers, such as an overly intense focus on the goal of winning. This goal can become a catalyst leading to destructive behaviors to an athlete’s overall physical health and well-being.

While sports are certainly an integral component of the public high school experience, teens and parents must foster positive athletic experiences by maintaining awareness of all positive and dangerous behaviors and making informed decisions when their children are involved in athletic competition.

Team Building and ¾ÅÓÎÌåÓý Athletic Benefits

Personal Development

Whether teens compete in team sports or engage in more individualized activities, all high school sports are fundamentally designed to help teens develop stronger personal and interpersonal skills and talents. Athletics offers teens a physical outlet to exert their troubles, anger, and emotions.. As hormones alter teens� moods and thoughts, competition fosters an opportunity for teens to interact with fellow peers, coaches, and mentors, while helping them understand their own abilities and talents.

When children and teens participate in group competitions and activities, they learn skills that apply to opportunities both on and off the playing field. Through competition, teens establish

While colleges and universities have new requirements, new standards, and new methodologies, one element has held true to the test of time: colleges want to see students� writing!

Today, almost all major universities and colleges require students to submit either an optional or mandatory application essay. These essays can range in topic, length, and quantity, but they’re all aimed at the goal of discovering whether or not a student can coherently, effectively, and intelligently convey his or her ideas.

As Quintessential Careers supports, “Gaining entrance to just about any college continues to get harder as more and more applicants are applying for a limited number of spaces. How can you improve your chances of being admitted to the college or university of your choice? By writing a stellar personal essay as part of your college application.� As some students struggle with this writing process, public school programs offer students a variety of moderate to extensive support.

College Application Essays: Opening or Slamming the Door

While an application resume and informational transcripts certainly reveal factual information about a collegiate candidate, colleges today are seeking to discover more personal elements about potential students. Schools are no longer focusing solely on the academic and/or extra-curricular abilities of students; instead, colleges desire to better gauge the types of students they are choosing to admit to their institution. As Quintessential Careers further reveals, an application essay “Maybe only 500 words, but the admissions essay(s) portion of a college application can mean the

As the demands and requirements for high school students are shifted towards core classes, such as English, math, and science, high schools across the country are losing money and funds for elective courses. As a result, programs in the arts, music, and other creative realms are dwindling. This not only stimulates a loss of opportunities for students, but it also stimulates a loss of jobs for teachers across the country. Specifically, according to the National Education Association, in New York City alone, over 233 elective teachers of athletics, music, and the arts were laid off due to issues of funding, testing, and a dwindling social respect for the arts and creative courses.

Causes of a Loss of Electives

School Funding

According to research from PBS, to understand why some schools are dropping specific programs, one must first understand how schools are funded. As PBS explains, “Expenditures on schooling are not equal from state to state. Some of the disparity can be explained by differing costs of educational input costs such as real estate and teacher salaries. However, when the numbers are adjusted to reflect regional wages and prices, there is still a large gap between state spending.�

As the costs of schooling and education vary across the country, some students are provided with higher budgets and opportunities to pay for elective programs. PBS provided a great example of this financial disparity: “accounting for the cost of living and price differences, New Jersey spent about twice as

Currently, over 22 states require that high school students pass an exit exam before graduating. Part of this trend towards exit exams is due to legislation and mandates, such as those influenced by the educational act �No Child Left Behind.� The intent of these exams is to ensure that students are being held accountable for their own learning while in school. To extend on this accountability, however, some states and schools are now requiring that students complete a graduation project, often either to replace or supplement an exit exam.

What is a Graduation Project?

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To help students learn different strategies of research and writing, many graduation projects focus on a study of inquiry, where students can research a topic, theory, or question for which they find personal interest. Some of these projects require that students write and cite an essay correctly, present their ideas and theories to a panel, prove that they can write an essay cohesively and using an organized sequence, while also showing their overall ability to speak and write convincingly. In this sense, it can be compared to a high school version of defending one’s master’s thesis.

One of the benefits of a graduation project is that students are actually engaging in work that is intended to prepare them for the “real world� after graduation. As students engage in projects of inquiry, they are able to explore different modes of support while also learning how to articulate their own thoughts

Whether high school students are seeking extra help for coursework or for students who are looking for ways to become more involved in their school or community, tutoring programs are widely available for high school students in public schools.

Benefits of Students Becoming a Tutor

Programs to Foster Positive Tutoring Experiences

For students interested in volunteering to serve as a tutor, such academic involvement can prove to be beneficial both socially and academically. As the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) explains, “Cross-age tutoring can have benefits for both the tutee and the tutor. Using high school students to tutor students in elementary school has the potential to be a win-win situation.� While there are opportunities for high school students to assist their peers, many tutoring programs focus solely on utilizing high school students as mentors for younger children.

As the CNCS further explores, one local Seattle school district paired high school and elementary students in academic tutoring programs, which resulted in beneficial learning opportunities for both age groups. As CNCS explains, the local high school and elementary school “partnered to create a service-learning program where high-school students enrolled in a home/family life class also tutored elementary students during the week. The high-school tutors worked in teams and were coached by an on-site reading specialist.� Three to five days a week, tutors would meet with their assigned elementary students, focusing on the lowest-scoring and achieving students so as to provide strong support early on.

As CNCS