HIDALGO — T.J. Aleman, a senior at Hidalgo High School, rises most school days at 4 a.m. for a cold shower.
He says it wakes him up before a long day begins.
First, it’s football practice, then classes and a few hours to squeeze in some homework and tutoring before T.J. is off to Wha-taburger to flip burgers.
T.J. said he took the job a month and a half ago to “gain experience.”
And because his dad is a single parent, he tries to take the pressure off his father by anteing up the cash for his own cell phone bill — which seems to always exceed the minutes on his plan. He also pays for the gas and insurance on his car.
“I like it,” he said of working.
But gas, he groaned. He used to cruise and burn through a tank a week.
“No more,” he said. “School, home and work. That’s all for me.”
Working teens have long been a staple of the labor force.
They mostly work in the summer, but some still manage to hold jobs during the school year, though the numbers of 16- to 19-year-olds working or actively seeking work has sharply declined throughout the last two decades, according to the U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics.
In 1948, the teen labor force was 53 percent. It declined in the post-war period as school enrollment increased.
The rate again increased from 1965 to 1979 when it reached 58 percent. By 2000, the teen labor rate had again fallen to 52 percent and in 2005, it was only 44 percent.
Studies have weighed in on the pros and cons of working while enrolled in classes, especially for someone so young.
“Most studies find that taking a job as a student improves long-run career outcomes, though a few studies find no positive long-term impacts,” according to Robert Lerman, who authored the paper, “Are Teens in Low-Income and Welfare Families Working Too Much?” for the Urban Institute.
“ … The new worry is that students working 20 or more hours per week are losing too much sleep,” Lerman said.
But T.J. and his classmate, Ana Sanchez, who works as a sales associate at J.C. Penney at La Plaza Mall, said working has been a positive experience.
“I wanted to have a different experience,” said 17-year-old Ana, who doesn’t need to work, but wants to. “I said if I couldn’t handle it, I would quit.”
Ana’s parents agree her job is a good idea, as long as she is happy and keeping up grades in all her Advanced Placement classes. Her managers are well aware of her time constraints, too. Since school began, she only works weekends.
Hidalgo High School also helps students who want or need to work with a special program called the Trade and Industrial Career Preparation.
Seniors can enroll in the program and earn three elective credits for holding down a job, said Claudia Martinez, an academic counselor at Hidalgo High School. The students also take a class that teaches them about interpersonal skills and the job application process. There are similar program at other area high schools.
T.J., who is enrolled in the Hidalgo program, finishes his classes at 2 p.m. every day. This gives the 17-year-old time to do his homework and go to tutoring before he goes to Whataburger, where he works a couple of days a week from 5 to 10 p.m. and on the weekends.
Martinez can also monitor T.J.’s grades as he works. The students, parents and employers sign a contract at the program’s begin-ning to help students keep their priorities straight.
“School comes first, then comes sports, then work,” T.J. says he tells his father.
The National Research Council has cited research showing that most teens hold jobs that have nothing to do with what they are taught in school. The jobs generally teach few skills for advancement, too, Lerman wrote.
Martinez cautions that some students may start believing that the job they have in high school is sufficient, and will not get a higher education because of it.
But T.J. and Ana don’t seem to follow this mentality.
Ana, who makes $6.25 an hour, said she is learning about money, about how much things truly cost. She has opened a banking ac-count and her current job has made her realize just how important it is to get a higher education. And she’s saving some of her money toward college.
Not all of it, though.
Martinez said she finds that teens, especially seniors, particularly start picking up jobs as the school year wears on and they want to go to prom, get a class ring or reward themselves for graduation.
“Now I see,” T.J. said. “You see things differently. Needs and wants.”
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