Editor’s Note: The following letter to the editor was written by a Centralia High School student as part of a class assignment.
In school, at any age, the students are showing signs of mental health issues and some people see no issue and no reason to stop and fix it.
So many students drop out or sadly end their lives when battling mental illnesses. School should be a safe place where you feel comfortable to find help. In some cases, the students do not find that security in the school system and I want to find ways to fix that.
Why is it that schools continue to ignore and neglect students’ mental health when they see an issue and a drastic change in the students?
As it’s becoming a more frequent issue, shouldn’t it be a main priority? According to The Washington Post, “more than one in five Connecticut children struggle with a mental health or substance abuse problem in any given year — but more than half of them get no treatment even though warning signs can appear as early as preschool.”
You can see that it’s seen very young and most don’t try to help prevent it for the students’ future, and it’s getting worse year by year.
School is often not seen as a safe place for the students. They aren’t comfortable opening up for help. Stated in a PBS article, “That’s not unusual for the one in five children with a mental illness. They often suffer anxiety, difficulty focusing and social challenges. Half of them drop out of high school, in part because many schools don’t manage to meet their needs.”
Some people need more help than others and there are categories that some people do not fit into, therefore they do not get the help that is needed.
These mental health issues are not good for the students’ learning careers in any way. These students not getting help threatens their lives and futures. In an Armstrong Center for Medicine & Health article, it is stated that, “Youth with emotional and behavioral disorders have the worst graduation rate of all students with disabilities. Over 50% of students with emotional and behavioral disabilities ages 14 and older, drop out of high school.”
These students are not graduating and they are dropping out because they didn’t find help. Shouldn’t that turn some heads?
All these issues are still going on to this day. These students deserve more attention and need to stop being ignored. They are not graduating and if you don’t graduate it can be hard to get a job and have a future. This issue should no longer be put to the side and something needs to be done about it sooner than later.
These kids’ lives are on the line.
Aydan Butler
Centralia
