School, after school practice, work, and then home to rush and complete the three hours of homework that’s all due by 11:59 pm. Monday through Friday. This is the routine of many high school teenagers, which does not account for any other stressors they could be dealing with at home.
180 days out of the year enduring a completely stacked routine, students are left exhausted and school attendance is at its lowest. “I’m exhausted. I’m a student that participates in a lot of school activities, inside and outside. I’m constantly working with a lot of people and their energies. So, yeah sometimes those breaks are needed to rejuvenate myself. Those breaks are needed so I can perform at my full potential, senior Aisa Wallace said.
Many times high demand “mental health breaks” are just so kids can catch up on rest and homework. “Everyday you come to school and receive a bunch of work sheets, then sometimes people don’t understand why they are in a certain class,” senior Timothy Bui said. In addition to the stress that comes with being a student there’s also stress that comes with being a teenager, athlete, and sometimes parent. “ I would love to have perfect attendance but with the classes I take, my social life, work life, and my home life, it all just piles on top of itself. It gets exhausting. I just need a mental break sometimes, and unfortunately, it falls on school days. Having Kalani, my daughter, junior year [brought on] a big change to how I’ve lived throughout high school. Sometimes it’s just hard to get through,”senior Brooklyn Coble said.
While not all our stories are the same, we each endure stress related to becoming a young adult. Schools across the United States say that they are doing all they can to create a solution in regards to the anxiety created in schools, but students here in Oklahoma dont feel the helping hand and open arms. “I dont have the mental capacity to come here for eight hours. Overall, not the whole staff, but some prioritize our attendance over mental health,” senior Kennedi Taylor said.
While students are taking it upon themselves to stay home in efforts to not burn out, even students with perfect attendance are starting to feel the strain. “Students think ‘Why should I be here.I’m not doing anything important.’ That’s the biggest problem. No one is motivated. To be completely fair, sometimes I don’t want to be here,” senior Timothy Bui said.
Performing at 100% and being expected to show up is a standard we as students will have to maintain for the rest of our lives but shouldn’t there be a middle ground? “There’s a middle ground, which is something I never thought I would hear myself say. Mostly, I’m very black and white but there’s grey matter on this issue .. we cant be here all the time and be okay,” Taylor said. It’s fair to say attendance is important. Education is the gateway to the finer things in life, but we need to take a look under a microscope and realize so is mental health.
