Students take mental health days Elise Hsu Ana Hoffman Sole planned to wake up early so she could finish some homework from the night before. But as soon as the day started, she sensed that something was off. “I could feel something was different than usual,” said Hoffman Sole, a senior. Hoffman Sole knew she wasn’t sick; she just needed a break. She decided to take a mental health day off from school, having her mother tell the attendance office that she would be absent. According to Healthline, mental health issues that go unchecked can result in physical symptoms, including headaches and sleepiness. To avoid this outcome, students take days off from school to focus on recovering from excessive stress. Although the parameters of a mental health day can be different for everyone, people often perceive it as a sick day for the mind. “If you’re physically sick, you would stay home and recover and get better, and it’s the same for mental health,” said Maria Valle-Remond, a senior. Valle-Remond has taken multiple mental health days off from school in the past. She recently utilized a professional development day, which students already had off, to focus on herself. “I didn’t do any homework and physically recovered,” ValleRemond said. “The next day, I came to school feeling super good... That one day was a break from everything.” Although there are usually other factors involved, students often cite academic stress as the main reason to take a mental health day. “School on its own can already be exhausting,” Hoffman Sole said. “There are high demands, especially for those who are being held to high expectations by themselves or others.” Those high expectations can cause students to crack under pressure, resulting in a decreased capacity to participate as they usually would. “The entire purpose of being here [at school] is to learn, right? It’s hard to do that when you’re completely drained,” said Sierra De la Cruz, a junior. Even though there are plenty of reasons a student could need to take a mental health day, there are just as many obstacles, including parental pressure, that could stand in the way. “Even if a student’s teachers were understanding, their parents might not be, and they feel like they have to get through the day and make it work,” Valle-Remond said. Carlmont Mental Health Specialist and Students Offering Support (SOS) Coordinator Shelley Bustamante commented that the value parents place on education could make it difficult for students to request a day off. “They’re minors, and adults often scrutinize every absence,” Bustamante said.
De la Cruz mentioned that she often feels hesitant to take mental health days due to the difficulty of justifying her need to be absent from school. “Either you say you’re sick and then the school thinks you have COVID-19 and it becomes a really big thing, or you say you have period cramps, and you can’t do that all the time,” De la Cruz said. “You have to make a bunch of excuses.” Section 48205 of Article 1 of the California Education Code states that an absence “for the benefit of the pupil’s mental or behavioral health” is considered an excused absence. The code was amended to include this in October 2021, when Senate Bill 14 was passed and chartered. Valle-Remond hadn’t previously heard of this change but thought it could improve communication between students and teachers. “If they [teachers] knew that you missed school because you had a mental health day, the absence would be viewed in a less stressful way,’ Valle-Remond said. When asked if she would take another mental health day, Hoffman Sole was quick to indicate she would. “If I hit a wall again tomorrow, I won’t go to school,” Hoffman Sole said.
Andrew Shu
26 HIGHLANDER CAMPUS
