A recent survey of Cohasset High School students showed that almost half of students feel high stress throughout the school year and identified a variety of mental-health related supports that students want from the school. While students indicated a desire for help with high workloads, emotional overwhelm, burnout and lack of sleep, most felt positively or neutral about the mental health support currently offered at Cohasset High School.
Safe Harbor Cohasset, an organization focused on combatting underage drug and alcohol use, conducted the survey in May to study student stress levels and student opinions on school resources, according to a presentation by Safe Harbor youth leaders to the School Committee.
About 48% of students described their stress during the school year as high or very high, and about 22% described it as low or very low.
“Looking at the results, they were as expected because it's a very high stress, competitive area,” said Sari Reyes, a junior at Cohasset High School and a Safe Harbor leader.
The survey also explored student attitudes toward “mental health days,” or absences from school to address stress or other mental health issues.
When asked which type of support would help students manage stress, the most popular answer, chosen by 21% of respondents, was “excused absence for mental health.”
About 37% of students said that they would be most likely to take a mental health day due to “high academic stress of workload,” and only 6% pointed to “anxiety or panic symptoms” as their most likely reason to take a mental health day. 14% of respondents each cited emotional overwhelm and lack of sleep as the most likely reasons.
“We're having ongoing conversations because there are some rules with the Department of Ed[education] and the law around absences and what can be excused and what can't be,” Superintendent Sarah Shannon said. “How do we not just give days but actually give support differently? It’s an important thing for us to figure out what the right balance is for our kids.”
Only about 14% of students felt that they and their mental health were very or somewhat unsupported by the school. And among the kinds of support that the survey mentioned, no answer stood as the clear winner among students. 17% asked for “better coordination of major tests/projects,” and 15.5% each asked for “more flexibility with deadlines” and “opportunities for breaks or reset time during the school day.”
Dominique Vecchiolla, a Safe Harbor leader and a sophomore at Cohasset High School, said that the survey results aligned with the results of a previous Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance survey. “It's just a common theme throughout every time we've asked the student body,” she said.
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