Decatur students ask school board for help with mental health
Herald & ReviewFeb 16, 2021
Feb. 13—DECATUR — Even honor students are struggling during remote learning.
"I noticed within myself and after talking to my peers that our mental health has gone downhill since virtual learning," said
Azlynn and some of her fellow students, as well as a couple of parents, spoke to the
"I am an honors (advanced placement) student, and I can count on one hand the number of non-AP honors classes I've taken," she said. "You may not see this as a problem or concerning, and that is the problem. I'm a student who has never had a problem balancing school work, actual work, extracurriculars and my home life, and I'm drowning in work and anxiety. I cannot begin to imagine what that might feel like if I struggled during a regular school year."
Azlynn put together a petition, which drew over 273 signatures from students who joined her in asking for the district to offer help.
"Right now all I'm hoping for is lightening up the workload," Azlynn said. "After doing a student survey, almost 93% of students feel overworked and overwhelmed with amount of homework they have."
Classes have been shortened, and assignments to do on their own have increased, she said, to the point that students she spoke to are spending from two to six hours daily on school work.
She'd like to see a way to set up video conferences for students to get together to see each other, if only on a screen, just to talk, and one-on-one meetings with counselors so students could ask for the help they need. The high schools do offer sessions with counselors in the afternoons, but few students are taking advantage of it.
"Humans are social creatures," Azlynn said. "We need that interaction to feel like we're living. We've been locked in our houses. That's why I think building a platform to talk to our peers or if we need to talk to a guidance counselor we can have a separate platform for that. We're all feeling very helpless at this point."
It's not just the students feeling helpless. Parents also spoke to the school board on Tuesday about watching their children struggle, and
"I have received a large volume of calls from parents voicing outrage that their children are not in school in
The board did vote to pay
In the meantime, however, the students still need each other, Azlynn said.
"I like the thought of counselors being connected," Garrison said. "They can make sure that in the stress, anxiety, and depression they feel, (students) might need some more support. You want it to be constructive venting. Part of the issue is, honestly, we did this a year ago and though it was just until end of school year and here we are. People are feeling there's no end in sight. They have the need to connect with each other."
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