Mental Health Days Off for 1-12 Grade Students

“At school, I was bullied. At home, my parents were separating. I would get sent out of class because I couldn’t keep it together. It made school seem impossible.”

Our students need time. When they’re sick, they need time to recover. When they experience depression, anxiety and the effects of mental illness, they need time all the same. But in New York, students are afforded zero days to recover from mental health conditions. This needs immediate change. Youth and young adults in the US are in the midst of a mental health crisis and the response from Albany has been months of contemplative inaction. New York is falling behind and our children are suffering for it. We ask that the New York State legislature act now to ensure that mental health days are included among the 20 days of excused absences New York public school students are allotted. It is a single, simple step to help our children and young adults and change how mental health is viewed.

In the US, 17% of adolescents ages 12-18 report experiencing a major depressive episode within the last year. 32% of teens ages 13-18 experience an anxiety disorder. Nearly 20% of high school students report having serious thoughts of suicide and 9% have made a suicide attempt. These statistics cut through lines of gender, ethnicity, income and education. Rates of depression, anxiety and suicidal ideation have risen across all demographics in children and youth since 2015 and show no signs of slowing. But while the cause of this crisis is debated, action can still be taken to stem its harm.

Mental health days provide the means for students to recover faster while also grasping and retaining school material at a higher rate. Students who take mental health days have higher GPAs and lower absences. The idea is neither new nor radical; 12 states in the US  already allow students to take mental health days without   academic consequences and 75% of parents believe their children should have the option of using mental health as a cause for excused absences. Of the parents who have had children miss school for mental health reasons, 86% of them report these absences led to a positive impact for the student. Whatever negatives come from missing a day or two of school are more than outweighed by the benefits of allowing students to take the time and space they need to address their mental health.

“I got kicked off the cross country team because I just didn't have the energy to practice. I thought there was something wrong with me, with how I looked, and I resorted to self harm because I didn’t know anything else.”  

When students are allowed to miss class for reasons beyond solely physical illness, it destigmatizes and normalizes mental health struggles. If we do not treat mental health as an acceptable reason for an absence, it implicitly discourages students from seeking help or speaking out about their experiences because the experiences themselves have been delegitimized. Creating statewide legislation would normalize addressing mental health in youth and young adults and help remove any potential shame and impediments students may feel when first opening up about their experiences with anxiety, depression,  suicidal ideation, and other mental health struggles.

Students today face unprecedented levels of psychological stress. New York’s inaction in confronting this reality is not only an act of negligence, but a sign that we are falling short, in comparison to the rest of the country, in meeting the needs of children and young adults. If we want to prioritize our youth and be the leader our state envisions itself to be, we must end the dithering and finalize legislation to grant mental health days to all New York students.

“If I could have taken mental health days then, it would have let me address my anxiety and PTSD so much earlier. It would have made such a difference to have had that support."