School is stressful. There's a lot of evidence to support this from the government's allowance of mental health days to the increased anxiety levels seen in kids over time. There have been programs and outlets to help ease this issue, but the truth is, it isn't working. Serious change needs to happen to finally adapt to today's mental health challenges.

Teacher institute days, parent-teacher conferences, and many more school-mandated absences are made throughout the year. This is added toward the 18-day average the typical student misses throughout the year and all of the other unplanned absences like building maintenance, weather, and other complications new to this day and age. Why not make all of them planned? I suggest extending the weekend to include Fridays, making the school week  Monday through Thursday. Theoretically, what's the damage if the totals of days off aren't that far from each other in each scenario?

Furthermore, there would be many advantages to this change other than helping student's mental health. Examples vary from giving more time to teachers and other school staff to grade, make lesson plans, and even help their mental health through what can be the taxing and overloading school year to giving more time to the school janitors to do their jobs. It is well known they deserve it.

So please, consider the lives of your friends, family members, teachers, and most importantly, yourself as you decide the importance and good a change like this could do. Please sign my petition to change the school week to only 4 days.