The youth mental health crisis is no hidden problem. A large CDC survey of high school students in 2021 found that 40 percent of teenagers struggle with persistent feelings of hopelessness or sadness. President Biden recently awarded almost $300 million to expand mental health services in schools. Even before COVID, rates of mental distress were rising among adolescents and young adults. In 2019, Collegiate’s Middle School took a step to offer ways to ease students' stress, implementing a mental health day where students could participate in activities to help them relax, learn how to handle stress, and reach out for help. The activities included creative writing, mindful coloring, knitting, yoga, and more.
In January of 2020, unfortunate news spread that a Dalton student committed suicide. His father confirmed the reports in a heartfelt tweet, urging parents to “hug your kids and tell them you love them.” Yoav Rosenthal, a 2022 Collegiate graduate, heard the news while rushing between classes. He was stunned into silence, and promptly went to the school administration with an idea to survey the Upper School students on the state of their mental health. After many meetings with the school’s lawyers, finally receiving consent, Yoav crafted the survey and distributed it in March 2020.
Students were required to complete the survey with their advisory groups, in order to get the most participants, so the results would be as accurate and representative as possible. The questions asked about topics including one’s own mental health and support systems, and willingness to utilize those systems. The results came in just as COVID hit the city. The findings showed:
67% of Collegiate Upper School students have felt at times that they were “a failure or that they had let their families down.”
72% have “become more easily annoyed and irritable” in the last year.
60% said depression, stress, and anxiety have negatively impacted their lives with respect to school, peers, and families.
73% have had trouble unwinding.
24% said that they turned to alcohol or other addictive substances to make themselves “feel better.”
Teachers and administrators recognized the severity of the results. The dean of students that year, Mr. Green was quite concerned. “It seems clear that many of our students bring too much anxiety and stress to their days at school,” he was quoted as saying in the school newspaper, “and it is important that adults and students fully attend to the underlying issues that continue to create this stress.”
In that same article, the previous Head of the Upper School, Ben Temple, said, “The data is deeply concerning and indicates that we have work to do to support students. My hope is to be able to review the information in the survey and partner with my colleagues to help students in the years ahead.”
What caused the students’ anxiety and discontent? The consensus was school itself, including grades and the social dynamics. 70% of students said that school is the most stressful part of their lives, and that was before COVID. Zander Kurita, then a 10th grade Collegiate student, read the results and decided the school needed to take action. With the help of other members of the student government, Zander created a presentation, making the case that a mental health day could help alleviate students’ stress. In the fall of 2020, he presented his power point to the entire student government and Mr. Green (Dean of Students at the time). Mr. Green seemed supportive and optimistic. The student government then met with Mr. Vidale (Head of Diversity and Equity), Dr. Mandel, and Dr. Gray about setting up the mental health day, but nothing came to fruition.
President of the class of 2023, Shrey Jhalani, thinks, “the mental health day would be more effective in the Upper School, as older students would take the advice and the activities more seriously and benefit more.”
In Spring of 2022, juniors were sent to Shelter Island for a two-day fun-filled, bonding extravaganza. Toward the end of the trip, the juniors underwent the famed grade-wide conversation. Ms. Wheeler began the conversation by asking for positive and negative memories of Collegiate and how we could make the community better in our upcoming senior year. Several issues were raised––lunch sucks; this teacher is awful–––but through these relatable grievances, the grade bonded, and deeper issues were expressed about the stress and well being of students at Collegiate, including that the administration had not organized a mental health day in the Upper School.
With this in mind, I think we have an opportunity here to effect real change to help the school’s mental health. The school should have an Upper School mental health day because it would improve the wellbeing of many students and create a more psychologically educated student body. This would be a start. However, the school needs to offer more. In the words of Ms. Wheeler, the Upper School counselor, “A mental health day is something of a Band-Aid for the larger problem: the poor mental health in Collegiate's student body. If I had to choose, I would prefer for the school to put energy into addressing your workload, giving you all more agency to protect your mental health (the option to take a mental health sick day, or drop some assignments or grades for example...), and into making sure you all have consistent access to mental health support throughout the year rather than on a single day.” She added that her preference would be more mental health days or events. When asked that same question recently, Dr. Mandel, remarked that we students should “start planning as soon as possible, work on getting a date on the schedule early in the year, give [ourselves] time to plan, and get students and faculty involved in the planning.” With this advice and these thoughts in mind, we as a Collegiate community can surely work together, striving to improve our student body’s mental health, and create a better Collegiate.
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