Dear school administration and staff,
Every morning, students walk into school carrying more than just backpacks. They carry anxiety about grades, pressure to fit in, fear of failure, and sometimes things much heavier: depression, trauma, and loneliness. Yet too often, these emotional burdens go unnoticed or untreated, pushed aside in favor of test scores, attendance rates, and college readiness.
As a student myself, I’ve watched my peers break down silently under the weight of these expectations including myself. That gnawing sense of being overwhelmed but afraid to say anything. According to the CDC, more than 4 in 10 U.S. high school students felt persistently sad or hopeless in 2021, and nearly 1 in 5 seriously considered suicide. That’s not just statistics, that’s more than a lot of people in the building.
You might think that we have counselors for that but one overwhelmed counselor for thousands and hundreds of students isn’t a solution, it’s a band aid on a broken system.
The American School Counselor Association recommends a ratio of 250 students per counselor. The national average is closer to 408 and even when available, stigma and fear keep students from walking through their doors.
So what can you do? Start with listening. Create spaces where students feel safe being honest not just about their grades, or how they’re doing academically, but about how they’re REALLY doing mentally and physically. Prioritizing mental health is the same exact way as it would be to prioritize education and building the brain. Build check-ins into the school day, fund wellness programs, normalize conversations about therapy and stress management. Train teachers to recognize warning signs and the importance of the teens and students well being as a whole entirely.
The pandemic opened a lot of eyes to how vulnerable we are and how strong we can be when we support each other. Let’s not forget that lesson. You shape the tone. You shape the policies. You have the power to make mental health a priority. Please don’t wait until another tragedy forces us to act.
