Story and Video by Amanda Stallings

In high school, relationships can be a great experience. However, students are also expected to focus on their work, and some of them may become too caught up in their boyfriend or girlfriend troubles to be able to balance the two. Whatever the situation relationships in high school can pose sticky situations.

The crisis guidance counselor at North, Mary Kerr-Grant, who helps students with problems, including relationship issues, worries that students in high school relationships can’t balance the relationship and schoolwork.

“I worry that it distracts them from their work,” Kerr-Grant said. “In high school, your number one goal should be to do your best.”

Spencer Scopel, a freshman at North, who has been in a relationship for five months, says he believes that spending too much time with your girlfriend or boyfriend could cause you to lose interest in your school work.

“You start to spend a lot of time with your boyfriend of girlfriend,” Scopel said. “You stop worrying about school and the work, which is a bad thing.”

Although relationships can get in the way of schoolwork, guidance counselor Joyce Barker believes that dating in high school could have some positives, one of them being the students opening up to new people.

“Yes, I do agree with high school dating,” Barker said. “I think it gives students the opportunity to meet different people. They get to interact with different personalities, and I think it prepares them for future relationships.”

Although Barker believes dating in high school does have some positive aspects, she wants the students to know they shouldn’t feel peer pressured to be in a relationship during high school.

“I don’t think anybody should feel pressured to date,” Barker said. “I think it should be the individual’s choice on when they want to start dating.”

Maturity levels of students could affect whether or not they’re ready to be in a relationship during high school. There are also serious issues that go along with dating. Among those are pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, approximately four million teens contract a sexually transmitted disease each year, and 34 percent of young women become pregnant at least once before the age of 20.

“I believe they [the students] are mature enough to date,” Barker said. “I think that they just need to be careful in their relationship. They need to be careful in all aspects, and take precautions.”

One of the hardest things for many teenagers are the break ups that go along with dating in high school. Losing friends after starting to date can also be a result from being in a high school relationship. Lindsey Bell, a sophomore at North, believes relationships usually end with someone getting hurt.

Whatever the stigma around adolescent dating, many couples in high school believe their relationship can last. Veronica Mazza, a sophomore at North thinks that dating in high school can be fun, but if you’re going to be in a relationship, you need to be cautious about what could happen if the relationship doesn’t work out like you planned.

“You learn a lot from the other person,” Mazza said. “You learn that you can really care for someone in a way you didn’t think you could. So, have fun, keep an open mind, and don’t lose yourself.”