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Money Is Not Only Reason Teens Go to Work : Youth: More adolescents are getting jobs. Although many educators fear that working students are neglecting their studies, they see no way of reversing the trend.

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THE BALTIMORE SUN

Adam Bhatti, 14, can describe the reason he works in two syllables: “Money.” But many teen-agers take jobs for reasons more complex than the desire for a new pair of sneakers or home video game.

Nina Riley was 14 and restless when she started working at a Burger King.

“I was bored. I felt like I was depending on my mother way too much,” says Riley, now 17 and an 11th-grader at a high school in Baltimore County. “Most of my friends work. If they just go to school and come home, their parents get on their nerves.”

Aaron Mossman, another high school student, says working is more enjoyable than going to classes.

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“Since I was 14, I wanted to start working, doing things on my own,” says Mossman, 18, who has worked in sales, stock and manufacturing. “Once I get into a job I like, it’s my favorite thing.”

Family reasons compelled a third student, Antonio Barber of another high school in Baltimore city, to get a job.

“I give my grandmother $50 when I get paid and I try to buy my brother the things he wants,” says Barber, 18, a serious and friendly young man who has almost no free time after school and a 40-hour workweek.

“After I get out of school, I go to work. When I come home, I don’t use the telephone or TV. I do homework. Sometimes I’d like to come home like everyone else, just sit down,” he says, “but I’m busy.”

Although many educators worry that working students may neglect studies and recreation, they see no way of turning back the trend.

“I am concerned,” says Mary Brown, principal of the eighth grade at a middle school in Govans, Md. “With the problems in our society, our children are carrying a burden in supporting the family--and education can become a second priority.”

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The nation’s Teacher of the Year for 1988, Mary Bicouvaris, spoke out this spring against students holding menial jobs, calling them “the silent killers of quality education. Students come to school truly tired, truly burned out,” said the Virginia teacher.

Students will admit this: “I have really declined in school work for the past few years,” says Michele Alexander, a high school senior who works 20 hours a week to support her young daughter. Last year, she says, “I was failing. I would fall asleep in class.”

But it is not only students working to support their families who sacrifice school and playtime for a job. Students from all socioeconomic backgrounds may “become so immersed in work they become less involved in school,” says David Greenberg, a guidance counselor at a high school in Howard County, Md. “They’re working instead of coming to football games or dances or plays.”

Tonia Morehead, for example, used to stay after school several days a week for extracurricular projects. This year, the high school senior heads to a job at a clothing store after class: “I enjoy school activities,” she says, “but it wasn’t paying to be on the prom committee.”

The current orientation toward money and working, as well as a low unemployment rate that has many employers desperate for workers, accounts for the increasing percentage of 14- to 17-year-olds in the labor force.

That doesn’t mean teen-agers aren’t overextending themselves to help their families, pad their wallets or find satisfaction missing in school or at home.

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Nina Riley tells of dropping out of the 11th grade last year because of her job at a fast-food restaurant. She would help close the restaurant, get home well after midnight and then skip school to catch up on sleep.

“I really thought she was handling it, but then I got a letter from the school that she had skipped 15 days in one month,” says her mother, Linda Riley, who encouraged her daughter to repeat 11th grade, this time without working.

“My parents didn’t let me work till I was 18,” Linda Riley says. “I think my parents were right.”

Unlike Nina Riley, Aaron Mossman says he successfully juggles work and school, particularly because he is enrolled in a vocational program that allows students to do all their class work in the morning.

Last year, he followed this Superboy schedule: Go to classes in the morning, work at a pharmacy in the afternoon, return to school for lacrosse practice, then go back to work until 9 p.m.

Sounding more like a seasoned laborer than a school kid, he explains, “I’ve been fortunate over the years to get bosses who are understanding about school activities. When they say, ‘When can you work?’ I say, ‘Any time--but preferably not until 11 (p.m.) or (midnight) on weekdays because of my studies.’

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“I’m flexible,” he says. “Everything can be worked out--work.

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