Mental health days are unexcused absences with a cushioned title. As a student at Grosse Pointe South, I recognize that education is a privilege, but it seems that it is looked down upon by many students. It astonishes me that students deliberately skip school because of vibes. To clarify if a student is truly struggling with their mental health, that’s a different scenario, but otherwise, it’s a lame excuse.
It is ungrateful to take extra days unwarranted. The Grosse Pointe Public School System gives students plenty of breaks, including weekends and an unusually structured winter break. Our winter break is purposely split in half to give students a chance to catch a break in two spots rather than one.
Breaks are very important for students, but unscheduled breaks can be more disastrous than many realize. According to the U.S Department of Education, students’ absences have a more significant effect on test scores, and a one-day increase in absences in a given grade in a given school decreases math scores by 0.02 standard deviations. When a student misses school, the missing work becomes suffocating unless they work during their skip day, which entirely defeats the purpose of skipping. Skipping is also ignorant to teachers who will have to manage your missed tests, what days you have extended, grading and providing online notes, excluding the normal amount of work . Another aspect is how it can affect group assignments and projects; it is selfish to abandon your group members to handle extra work and communicate with you.
As a busy student at South, I understand the importance of breaks. However, I believe the school system needs to head in a different direction rather than allowing students to skip school at will. After school and weekends are contested by sports, family, homework, jobs, often leaving students with little to no free time to have free time, it’s also common to see students then staying up far past reasonable hours of the night to experience free time, which, according to The National Library of Medicine, can cause lower grade point averages, compromised learning, increased risk of academic failure, impaired mood and increased chance of a motor vehicle accident. I believe the administration should establish policies to ensure reasonable homework levels, large school assignments being treated like tests, so that due to dates not landing at the same time, tests and quizzes were moved from Mondays to other days of the week. Skipping school will absolutely come back to haunt you. You cannot procrastinate school itself; the work will always catch up.
