High school students face ongoing stress, exhaustion, and mental health issues due to the negative impacts of school. 

“School is a place for students to learn, achieve goals, associate with peers, and express their creativity; however, it can put unhealthy stress on students,” said Kelsey Shelton, senior.  “It has stressed me out even more to the point where I don’t want to get up and go to school anymore,” said Shelton.

At Chatham High School, students have four classes each semester with large amounts of work in class including homework; this stress can lead to exhaustion, physically and mentally.

“School can make me very tired. Learning all the material and then doing school work on top of out of school events makes me exhausted at times,” said Alyssa Radar, senior. 

The negative environment of school also affects school performance, social life, and attention span of students. “I find it hard to concentrate at school. It’s a little difficult to sit in a classroom for an hour and a half at work constantly. My attention span is said to be short,” said Radar. 

Because of the exhaustion and stress, students sometimes have little to no motivation to turn in work on time or at all; this can cause their grades to be affected and even drop. Anxiety, depression, and other mental health issues are common with students.

“School has definitely stressed me out. From difficult school work to drama, it has opened me to a lot of anxiety,” said Kasey Martin, junior. 

Students are involved in other activities outside of school including jobs, sports, clubs, spending time with friends and family, etc. It can be hard to manage these things on top of school.  “It can be very difficult to manage a sport while in school when we get home late from games; it is so hard to concentrate,” said Martin.

“With the hours I work, I don’t have time before work to do anything, and by the time I get off ,I’m too tired to do anything,” said Shelton. 

Schools should try and find ways to change in order to become a more positive environment and less draining on students.

“I think school will always be draining regardless, but having motivated and attentive teachers can make school less dreadful,” said Radar.