The Pearl Post staff work during the long, stressful hours after school as they fight to meet deadlines. 

The hardworking editors, writers and photographers of The Pearl Post have a very challenging job to do. We have to make sure our sections have up-to-date content that satisfies the readers. We also have to keep track of the writers and photographers and make sure they are turning in the stories and photos to be published. Combined with our Advanced Placement (AP) classes, college applications and countless other extracurricular activities, we are knee-deep in stress which consumes our minds every day. 

One of the biggest stressors we have to deal with is balancing our time and work. We are in the hardest years of our entire school career. We also have five other classes to stay caught up in. If we fall behind on any assignment, it is a long and continuous climb to get caught up. We have to manage our demanding AP classes where we receive the bulk of our homework from and also our time-consuming extracurricular activities. Some of us are on a sports team and have to practice for several hours after school each day, while some of us also have to manage college application deadlines or study for the SAT and ACT tests. 

On top of all our work outside of the newsroom, we have to make sure we are all meeting our deadlines. One thing everyone should know when working in any newsroom is that nothing ever goes as planned. When the staff writers miss deadlines, the editors struggle with meeting theirs. It’s how the chain of a publication works. It’s stressful but there’s no way to combat it.

When we are scrambling to meet our deadlines, we are always staying a few hours after school up to three days a week which leaves us with less time at home doing our ever-expanding homework load. Some of us also come home to household chores.

The only solution to the everlasting stress is for our teachers and peers to be more understanding of our workload. We are only teenagers. Our brains have not even fully developed yet. Our workload also needs to be shortened. Our teachers need to realize that when we stay after school to work on the magazine they look forward to, combined with completing our household duties, we have minimal time to complete all our other homework. If our homework load was shortened or we had longer deadlines we would not be cramming for time deep in the night. Our stress levels would be greatly reduced and our work quality would improve. 

With our workload expanding and time shrinking, the stress buildup takes a major toll on us. Every day is a race to meet deadlines with more piled upon us right after. We are knee-deep in the trenches of stress and we cannot dig ourselves out of it. We are just high school students and we are dealing with stress that adults with paying jobs have to go through.