School issues are common for pre-teens and teenagers. They’re part of the ups and downs of school life.

School issues can show up at any stage within the school year and they can either be big or small. Sometimes they go away quickly by themselves, and sometimes they last longer than one would expect.

One commonly known issue is peer pressure. Peer pressure is the influence of members of one’s peer group. It is a feeling that one must do the same things as other people of one’s age and social group in order to be liked or respected by them. Oftentimes, teens neglect the fact that they are being pressured because of how common it is for peer pressure to happen. Here’s a story of one’s experience with peer pressure.

Jerandi is an 18-year-old who graduated from Lake Worth Community High School with a 2.0 GPA. He had no hope that he was going to progress onward due to the decisions he had made in the years leading up to graduation.

During 9th grade, he stated that he felt like a “big boy”  because he was in high school; it was a brand new start for him, a chance to make new friends and new experiences. He started off with the normal 4.0 as everyone does when starting high school and everything was going pretty smoothly. He was getting A’s and B’s throughout the school year.

He said meeting new people was weird because he was used to seeing the same old people and being forced to talk to them because of the lack of freedom in middle school. In middle school, you would do everything with your class but in high school, you’re on your own. He stated it was weird walking around a big campus because he was used to walking to two buildings, while now he had to walk to eighteen.

He began to make new friends as normal teenagers do at this stage in their lives; however, these individuals weren’t the best of influences. They would skip school almost every day just to go smoke and drink. But Jerandi said he wasn’t affected by this just

Tenth grade he claims was the “Golden Year” and since he was a Sophomore, he knew more about the school and had acquired some new friends. He had begun smoking and only now started to skip in the hallways during his classes, sometimes even just staying home because he didn’t feel like going to school that day. His grades were still quite decent, now getting B’s and C’s.

He claims 11th grade went downhill due to COVID and virtual learning. He only went to class the first month of school; after that, he wouldn’t even show up to online classes, and he had a job at the mechanic’s shop so he wasn’t doing much homework or going to school. At this time, the school was calling his parents excessively and he began to lie saying that he did go to school but they weren’t marking him there.

Now his parents aren’t the best English speakers around so they were just going off what he said.

He stated he knew he wasn’t doing so well but he didn’t care because he was having “fun.”. Still hanging around his not-so-great friends he kept smoking and skipping. He got D’s, F’s, and rarely C’s. Now when the time did come for the teachers to put in grades for each quarter he would do all the assignments that were still being taken so he could at least maintain a D.

Twelfth grade felt like an official “big dawg” as he stated because it was the last year of school. He claimed it was horrible, stating his GPA was terrible, starting with a GPA of 1.4 at the beginning of the year. He wasn’t too worried about it because he thought he would be able to keep up with it, but he was proven wrong.

He realized he messed up once the 4th quarter hit, now having to make up 7 1/2 credits. He would stay up at three am doing late assignments and the new ones like crazy and he was waking up at six am to go to school. His GPA did rise to 1.6 but that wasn’t enough. He would do whatever work he had to do to pass this school year to graduate. He did get grounded and stopped smoking. A week before graduation, his GPA was 1.998. He did bring it up to a 2.0 due to one of his teachers bringing up one of his D’s to a C.

On the day of graduation, he had mixed emotions because while he was happy he did it, he was sad that he was leaving high school knowing he probably wouldn’t see his friends again and he was mad because he had to do all of that hard work for a piece of paper that says “Diploma.”

Five of his friends weren’t able to graduate.

School does get hard sometimes and it is stressful, but if you’re struggling you should ask a teacher for help. You don’t need to wait until the last minute to get stuff done. Students can be widely influenced by other students due to peer pressure.

You shouldn’t have to fail to try to fit in with your friends.