More High-Schoolers Working Longer Hours

 (AP) – With a worker shortage in a service-oriented economy, businesses are attracting Connecticut high-schoolers and offering them chances to make extra money.

Although most students workers make the state minimum wage of $6.15 an hour, that’s about $500 a month for teens willing to work 20 or more hours a week.

Data released yearly by the state Department of Education show an increasing number of students are swelling the ranks of the work force and working longer hours.

Statewide, 31.3 percent of 11th- and 12th-graders say they work at least 16 hours a week, compared to 28.4 percent five years ago.’

More than 50 percent of vocational school students around the state report working more than 16 hours a week compared to 41.5 percent five years ago.

The state Department of Labor sets the limit for minors at 32 hours per week, a high threshold when combined with the 30 hours of class time and an average of two to three hours a night of homework, educators said.

“Certain students are spending time at school and then participating with clubs and sports. It’s hard to imagine how they can be working a lot and getting enough sleep,” Jane Baljevic, principal at Milford’s Joseph A. Foran High School, said.

The extra work though can also have its positive side because of the discipline, responsibility and time-management skills students learn during their after-school pursuits.

“Research seems to show that students who work 15 to 20 hours a week... tend to be motivated about school and learn to manage their time,”’ Baljevic said. “But more than that can be detrimental to their school work.”

West Haven High School Principal Ron Stancil said that despite his school’s ballooning numbers of working students, the honor roll has remained relatively consistent over the last five years.

“I walk into stores all over town and they’re just mobbed with our kids,” Stancil said. “And I enjoy that, I enjoy seeing kids who are working in good jobs or any jobs.”