Students, Not Robots

March 15, 2019 | Ethan Aliotta, Dang Tran, & Nina Esquerdo

The stereotype for high school students today is that they undergo a lot of stress. Your average high school student is constantly pressured to succeed in extracurriculars, achieve good grades in class and stand above others. From a young age, the typical U.S student is put into competition against others with only the best coming out on top. The pressure exerted takes time away from students that could be spent resting, working or helping family members. Research shows that this pressure can cause increased anxiety in students. This was just a general overview of American high school students, but we wanted to know how this applies to South Meck students particularly.

We created a survey that helped to evaluate the correlation between work, school, and extracurricular activities and how they can cause anxiety and other mental illnesses in students. The survey included questions that evaluate how long students study, what jobs and extracurricular activities they have, how this overall effects their GPA, and what percentage of said students have anxiety and depression.

Overall the final result was 211 responses, with every student having varied answers but they can be grouped into similar characteristics. The average of all the questions was well correlated:

Average Grade Level: 10th grade

Average Time Studying: 1-2 hours

Average GPA: 3.25

Average Class: Honors

Average EC Participants: 55%

A strict correlation was found after crunching the spreadsheet: those with GPA 3.5 and above participated in extracurricular, honors and AP courses, were a majority of 10-11 graders, and spent more than 2 hours of studying. Those same students made up the majority of those who experience anxiety and depression, which rated as 54% depressed and 33.2% anxiety-ridden of the student body. Of the 54% that is depressed about 90% of those students fit the circumstances above. Same goes with anxiety and insomnia. This shows a near direct correlation between having more activities and high success has the side effect of mental health.

An extreme focus on schoolwork is often linked to anxiety, which symptoms include: palpitations, sweaty palms, constant worry, and dry mouth. This often affects students outside of school and can affect their personal lives. In the survey, 24% said that they had an after-school job, meaning that those students often have to juggle the responsibility of a job and keeping good grades.

An important way to fight these problems is to get help but, a lot of students aren’t aware of the options that are available to them, in our survey of South Meck students over 77% were unaware that South Meck even had a psychologist. Since the school psychologist is relatively new to South Meck, students may not have much information on Mrs. Yegge. This prompted us to ask her, “On an average day, how many students come to you with concerns relating to mental health?” Her response surprised us. “It really depends on the day. I would say on average, 2-5 students a day. Sometimes it can be more, sometimes it can be less.” From our survey, we concluded that out of the 211 people who took it most struggled with some form of mental health illness. That makes the number of people who actively seek her to get help very little.

With so little people getting help we decided to ask how South Meck and CMS is trying to help more students with mental illness, “What role does the school play in mental health? What is South Meck actively doing to help student’s mental health? What can the school improve in helping to decrease stress and anxiety levels in students? CMS as a whole is working actively to address mental health in students. As part of the strategic plan, student’s social and emotional well-being is a top priority. The district has made changes, such as adding more school psychologists and counselors, implementing events addressing mental health issues, and providing schools with programs and tools that can be implemented to address stress and anxiety.

Schools can only work to decrease stress and anxiety with students if they are aware of the issues. I encourage students to speak to parents, teachers, counselors, the school psychologist, or another trusted person if they are feeling stressed and/or anxious.” At the end of our questions we gave Mrs. Yegge some room to add something she feels the South Meck student body to hear and here is what she wanted everyone to know, “I am lucky enough to be at SMHS five days per week, full-time. I encourage students to utilize me as a resource, or just stop by to say hello!”

Those students with high grades and outside of school activities and jobs are more likely to be stressed and have anxiety. A final correlation is about those who need help. Of those who have a mental illness or strain, 74% are not getting help. Nearly spot on, 73% do not know that SM has a psychologist who can greatly help students. Those also shows how students don't ever bring it up to adults, how it is compressed inside until the stress can no longer be handled and we get the worst results such as self-harm, dropping out, giving up, suicide etc. We encourage all students who feel trapped by everything around them to find help.

If you are still interested in filling out the survey, you can do so here.