Hi,

I'm glad you've come across my website! Going through high school, or maybe even middle school, we experience so many things that our teachers might not even have a clue about. My idea is to collect your stories about anything you've gone through while being a student. The topic of your story can be about anything! When I collect responses, I will be sharing them with high school teachers and staff members, and receiving their input. Not only does this make everyone's voices heard, but it also helps teachers and other school staff members to have a better understanding of what it's like to be a student today. 

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Sincerely, Avah

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Dear school, 

“I struggle immensely with keeping up with work as i’m in advanced classes and strive for perfection. I’m severely depressed and often lack motivation to do this work so this is 10x as hard to keep the grade I want. I work for hours and hours on homework with the amount of work I have and often have a couple of tests a week to study for on top of this. It is extremely stressful and goes unnoticed”.

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Sincerely,

Student, #1

 

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Dear School,

“My mental health has always been a reason why I don’t enjoy school as much as I should. I get so anxious most of the time i’m there, which is why i’m grateful to be doing online school at the moment. Things like - not having my friends in the same lunch as me, or classes where I don’t know anyone makes me anxious because I don’t feel as comfortable. i get so anxious where I just feel so sick & I hate it”.

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Sincerely, 

Student #2

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Dear School,

"I don’t have a specific story, but I do know that I personally (along with many other hcsd students) struggle a lot with mental illness. Not only from diagnosed illnesses, but for keeping up with mental health in general. This year has been particularly hard because of the obvious, but I wish more staff would understand that some people have been suffering from this even before the pandemic. An inconsistent school schedule where we have to learn a lot on our own just is not helping it. It would be wonderful if the teachers would at least take some time to really check in on us, because sometimes school is the only place we see anyone other then our family".

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Sincerely,

Student #3

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Dear School,

"I have never really been the type of student that decided to work in a group. I’ve always wanted to work individually and it didn’t really hit me until about middle school when I realized it was actually my anxiety. Ever since then, my anxiety has gotten so much worse. The classes I’ve left the semester feeling the best in are the classes that I’ve taken online. I wanted to chose online Academy so bad because of this reason, but I couldn’t because of my schedule. I’ve always been an overachiever and I don’t settle for anything less than perfect, especially when it comes to my schoolwork. This makes me feel like a failure if I don’t take any honors or AP classes. I would’ve felt like a failure if I chose to do online academy since there were no classes offered for honors students, which meant that my mental health has been left to suffer immensely. Trying to juggle school, work, extra curriculars, even more homework, and my own personal mental health struggles in a pandemic has been really difficult. If I can’t do this only going to school 2-3 days a week, then I genuinely don’t know how I can do it going 5 days a week and I just wish that someone would recognize that".

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Sincerely,

Student #4

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Dear School,

"This year is very stressful with everything going on. It seems like we cannot catch a break with all these tests. It’s really hard to learn on our own".

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Sincerely, 

Student #5

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Dear School,

"I have been told at lunch by many others through the years of elementary, middle, and now high school that I should stop eating at lunch time. I am overweight for my height and now I have a really bad relationship with food and my body".

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Sincerely,

Student #6

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Dear School,

"last school year was the toughest part of my life. i was dealing with anorexia, depression, and anxiety all at once. i was having breakdowns constantly, i was in and out of the office, and crying during all of my classes. i couldn’t get any of my work done, and i was failing. (which made everything 100x worse.) i was vocal about my anxiety and depression to my teacher’s, but they didn’t do much. sure a few of them let me go walk around the halls to calm down, or extended the deadline for some of my assignments, but it wasn’t helping. i needed someone to talk to. before the pandemic started, i had a few teachers a was vocal with, which helped a lot!!! but obviously i couldn’t just talk to them during the whole class period. social interaction with people i didn’t know, or having to present in front of the whole class was what made me most anxious. (even if it was just a small group). i think it really would have helped if i could have just presented in front of the teacher, and i made that clear a few times. it didn’t work out though. most of the time they would brush it off and tell me i would be fine, or forget about it and make me present anyways".

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Sincerely,

Student #7

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Dear School,

"i remember freshman year i used to eat in my (then favorite) teachers classroom because i thought he was pretty swag. during pride month my friend wanted to borrow one of my flags so i brought a few to show her at lunch. there were a group of different students in there as well. when i brought out the flags, they were calling us homophobic slurs and saying they should “burn” us. i brought it to my teachers attention and he said “boys will be boys. i feel more oppressed as a straight white man than you ever will.” and i’m a gay woman of color". 

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Sincerely,

Student #8

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