by Ziv Golan ‘26

From October 10-15 MCPS decided to attempt to address the needs of many students by having a mental health awareness week. This was in response to the growing number of students being very stressed about mounting schoolwork and extracurricular activities. Over the week a mix of breathing exercises, therapy dogs, youtube videos, and a no homework weekend to top it off was thrown together to try to help students. This MCPS attempt to address mental health did little to help students and more needs to be done.

At least MCPS is trying to address mental health in some form unlike many other school systems around the country, it just could be done in a better way. A no homework weekend needs to be enforced, not just treated as a suggestion that not every teacher follows, and the videos shown must engage students, not cause them to doze off. In our current world, with high school students being extremely stressed out, mental health should be a top priority, not an afterthought. A plan to address mental health needs to be consistent, not one week with a few activities thrown together.