Mental Health-- Should Schools Care?

By Joyce Ng

Arcadia High School

The year 2020 has been full of ups and downs with the pandemic taking center stage, taking a devastating toll on students’ mental health. Schools closed. Malls shut down. Prom and graduation were canceled. Gatherings with friends ceased to exist. All one could do was hole up in their room and hope for better days to come. However, what we all thought would be a few weeks, turned into months, and then half a year still going strong. With assignments piling up and tensions high, this sent teenagers’ already mood swing-ridden minds spiraling.

In mid-March, schools from practically every state in the U.S. closed their campuses for the rest of the 2019-2020 school year, affecting nearly 30 million students and their families. Social-distancing policies restricted social interaction and engagement with peers, leading to an increase in feelings of stress, isolation, and anxiety. According to the KFF Tracking Poll conducted in mid-July, 67% of parents with children ages 5-17 worry their children will be stunted socially and emotionally if schools continued to remain closed.

“The pandemic really gave me a lot of anxiety,” says Chanah Park, a junior at Cypress High School. “And that affected my mental health greatly.”

More than ever, there is a need for schools to adopt mental health programs. Although education still reigns as the principal purpose of a school, mental health services play an essential role in creating and maintaining a safe environment for its students. Granted, some may express their concern in terms of funding or adding extra burdens to staff members, but setting up a system is relatively simple. Especially with schools going online, it is quite easy to make a “virtual wellness center” by compiling various useful resources on a website.

In fact, some schools have already jumped on the idea of a digital support project. Ellie Jeong, a junior from Sunny Hills HS, states, “My school district has this thing called a Virtual Calming Room.”

“On its website,” she explains, “it has a lot of anxiety relief activities like meditation and journaling templates.”

With a wide demographic having reported during quarantine that they experienced disproportionally worse mental health outcomes, increased substance use, and elevated suicidal ideation, it is imperative that students have to access help.

As mental turmoil continues to grow along with the rise of Covid-19 cases, there is no better time than now to start prioritizing our children’s safety and well-being.