The coronavirus pandemic has affected almost every aspect of student’s lives. We are in an environment where keeping up with school, work, and our social lives is more difficult and tiring than ever. We are expected to keep up with the same amount of work as before under much different circumstances. This is why I propose that students deserve mental health days.

A mental health day is a day that you take off from work in order to relieve stress. The idea isn’t a radical one, and has even seen support in the general assembly, and in other states across the country. I can’t speak for everyone when I say this, but this school year has been extremely stressful. Having a set amount of mental health days that you can use throughout the year to rest and recharge would be beneficial to student’s mental health. In an ideal world, it would work like sick days. Right now, if you’re not sick, you can’t miss a day of school because it counts against you. Not being able to have some sort of break is extremely tiring and damaging. 

I know this sounds kind of crazy, considering there would be some students that would try and take advantage of the system. However, I think that if schools had something in place where the parent or guardian would have to call in or send a note to confirm the student isn’t just skipping school, it could work. I would personally love a system like this, and I know some other people that would too. 

Five classes a day, five days a week, and thirty and a half hours a week (not including the time spent on homework or extracurriculars). It can get very tiring very quickly, especially when you’re taking difficult classes. I hope that in the future people can recognize how stressful school really is for students, and how we should have at day that if we’re at our limit and need a break, we know we can take one without a mark on our record.