Enough. It's time to address the mental health crisis at LaGuardia High School.

Students and teachers from the school were asked this question: Does this school do enough to help people with mental health issues? Their responses were written down anonymously and they were aware that their answers would be shared. 125 responses have been collected as of July 15, 2019. All responses and any new responses will be posted as updates to this petition and on this Instagram account.

The overwhelming response was no. Students and teachers voiced their concerns regarding LaGuardia's mediocre handle on mental health. These include the lack of awareness, the lack of trust, the questionable quality of care and the school's academic policies that have pressured students immensely.

Dr. Lisa Mars was recently removed as the school's principal. This is a major step in addressing the issue, as her ineffective leadership made achieving progress difficult. It is also good news that Ms. Yeou-Jey Vasconcelos has been appointed as interim principal. Ms. Vasconcelos should consider the academic pressures students faced under the direction of Dr. Lisa Mars and how it affected all students, whether they suffer from mental illness or not.

The following are possible ideas to provide better support for the students of LaGuardia High School (in order of increasing difficulty to implement):

1. Promote awareness by having posters put all over the school. These posters would have information about the school's different mental health services, where to access them and how to access them. In addition, regular announcements should be made over the loudspeakers with the same information.
2. Brief every single teacher, faculty member and security guard before the start of every school year on how to better handle student crises, breakdowns, and meltdowns.
3. Organize a parent meeting every school year where all parents/guardians of LaGuardia students would be strongly recommended to attend (making these meetings mandatory would be ideal, but it can be assumed that this would be an even more difficult undertaking). These meetings would be organized in an effort to dispel any myths or prejudices concerning mental illness, as many parents hold a stigma. Topics such as different mental illnesses, different forms of treatment and access to treatment should be discussed. These meetings would include a Q&A session between parents and the school's mental health professionals, again, in an effort to de-stigmatize mental illness. In addition to this, the school should send letters and send e-mails to every household with the same information that would be shared at these meetings in order to spread this information as much as possible. 
4. Hire more guidance counselors. The guidance office at LaGuardia is understaffed, and more guidance counselors are needed to handle the large amount of students that attend the school. As of July 15, there is a hiring freeze on new guidance counselors in the Department of Education. However, counselors already within the DOE system can be employed by the school. If more are hired, the school needs to make sure that they are qualified and genuinely care about the students at LaGuardia High School.