Seven grueling hours, five days a week, for 182 days. School can easily become something that is dreadful for many students. The tiresome and exhausting long days can cause students to slip into a negative mental health day cycle that never ends. 

Some may ask, what is a mental health day? A mental health day is when a student misses their first period (or even their first few periods) to sleep in, therefore improving their mental health. Once a mental health day is taken, students never go back. The joy of being able to hit the snooze for 45 more minutes is unbeatable. 

“I take a mental health day about once per week. I usually do it on a Wednesday because pride allows for students to sleep in even longer,” WCHS senior John Dinkleberg said. “Being able to sleep extra helps me power through the week and do better in my classes and on tests.”

Mental health days are most common for seniors due to a contagious disease found in their grade called ‘senioritis’. It is strongly encouraged that underclassmen and juniors try to keep a low amount of mental health days throughout the school year compared to the seniors. 

“My parents banned me from taking mental health days after I started to fail my first period class,” WCHS junior Cornelius Brown said. “I felt a lot happier being awake and refreshed, but I forgot that I needed to keep up with my school work for all the times I missed.”

Students need to ensure that they are maintaining good grades when taking mental health days. It feels easy to slack off and fall behind when not going to a class in the morning, but teachers will have the last laugh when students come complaining about their grade.

“Now that mental health days are excused absences, I am going to start taking a mental health day every day of the week for the rest of the school year,” WCHS sophomore Duke Johnson said. “I plan on asking my friends what we do in the first period to make sure I do not fall behind.”

Mental health days will cause a strong decline in the amount of students present in their morning classes. Students will be able to work harder and study more at night due to their increased sleep. Performance on tests will increase causing teachers to appreciate mental health days.

“On days that I take mental health days, I find my test scoring and engagement in class to be significantly better than on days where I wake up at 6:50 A.M.,” WCHS senior Stephen Green said. “I agree with the decision to make mental health days excused absences, it will definitely benefit students here at WCHS.”

Some students with after school activities and extracurricular activities struggle to stay up at night studying and doing homework. With mental health days becoming excused absences, these students will be able to use this time in the morning to study and do homework.

“I have been able to study and review in the morning on my test days. My teachers and parents are proud of me and support the mental health days,” Brown said. “I have definitely been more happy recently and I credit that to taking mental health days.”