Mental health, the absence of mental disorders, allows people to deal with stressors in their lives. When expectations feel overwhelming, some people choose to step back and take a day to reset. This allows the brain to relax before going back to the requirements of daily life. Though adults receive the opportunity to take mental health days, students do not. Schools consider mental health days to be unexcused absences. Unexcused absences ultimately add up and cause ineligibility to exempt semester and final exams. Schools should count mental health days as excused absences for students.
One in six students face mental health challenges each year. Since 2020, a 31% increase in mental-health related emergency department visits has been reported. Mental health days allow students to spend time focusing on themselves and what they need to maintain a healthy mental state. By allowing students to take mental health days, schools open an honest discussion about mental health and allow students to seek the help they need. Placing value on students’ mental health and allowing them to take mental health days allows them to become effective and productive learners, preparing them to become valuable members of the workforce.
Mental health days also reduce burnout and long-term absenteeism. Students often feel burnt out and overwhelmed by the expectations placed upon them within school. This causes absenteeism, or a disengagement in work, to become a problem students must face. If schools do not provide mental health days to students, this can become a long-term problem. Harvard Graduate School of Education’s survey results revealed that 27% of students experienced academic burnout. When schools do not allow students to take the time they need to preserve their mental health, they place students at risk for burnout. This causes students to demonstrate less success in school and face a decline in their mental state. To combat this, schools must allow students to take mental health days. These total resets remain vital to the health and mental restoration of students.
Opponents to the implementation of excused absences for mental health days argue that they teach children to avoid their problems and set them back academically. When some students skip school for mental health days, they might attempt to avoid taking a test they did not study for, a project that they forgot to do or even avoid a consequence. By missing these important school events, students might fall back academically, causing heightened anxiety. Though these concerns demonstrate valid arguments, by allowing mental health days with no penalty to students, schools could avoid problems. With proper implementation, mental health days allow students to take a needed break. If schools involve both teachers and parents in mental health days, they provide students with a perfect opportunity to reset and return to school ready for academic success, rather than forcing students to suffer through poor states of mental health.
Students must receive the opportunity to take the time they need to maintain mental health and academic success. Schools need to work and adapt attendance policies to support students through times of mental unwellness.
