CUSD Students Facing Mental Hurdles
Nearly four years ago COVID-19 led to public schools shutting down, leaving youth worldwide feeling isolated and alone. These negative feelings manifested themselves in many ways, from worsened study habits to decreased motivation in school.
In the summer of 2022, Youth Media Collective interviewed six Clovis teens about how the pandemic has affected their mental health and their ability to stay motivated in school.
Overall, five of the six students interviewed said that they felt the pandemic has had a negative impact on their mental health as compared to their mental health before the pandemic lock-down began.
Study after study shows that teens nationwide also experienced mental health challenges as a result of the pandemic. For example, a study published in The Lancet, a journal on child and adolescent health, talks about how consistent school routines were a coping mechanism for many struggling students. Once schools closed, these students lost routines that gave their lives a set of structure.
Parents are also concerned about their children’s mental health following the lock-down. A 2021 study by McKinsey Company found that 35 percent of parents out of over 16,300 surveyed said they were very or extremely concerned about their children’s mental health.
Part of the problem was the difficulty in adapting to remote learning.
One study by Harvard University found that “the main effects of hybrid and remote instruction are negative, implying that even at low-poverty (high income) schools, students fell behind growth expectations when their schools went remote or hybrid.” This data suggests students from a wide range of economic backgrounds faced new struggles in school as a result of the pandemic, not just those from lower income households.
Clovis teenagers interviewed said they wanted to see more hands-on solutions from their school communities.
Feelings of burnout among Fresno area high school students
High schoolers reported a widespread lack of motivation in school after the pandemic, according to interview results.
Buchanan High School student Ivy Zheng said she developed bad habits during the pandemic’s remote learning setup in 2020-2021.
“I stopped paying attention when topics that I find boring (or) unimportant showed up,” she said. “I also stopped paying as much attention to taking notes as well.”
Zheng said these habits have stayed with her during the past 2021-2022 in-person school year, too. “I didn’t pay much attention during English unless I knew something would appear on the test.” She also added that she stopped taking notes for class -- unless it was specifically required. “Even then,” she said, “the notes are poorly done just to get a score.” In addition to feeling unmotivated in school, students reported feeling burned out.
Burnout is defined as a state of mental exhaustion that is driven by stress, according to HelpGuide.org.
“I feel huge amounts of exhaustion more than I did in the past and it makes me shut down and almost shut out the people I love,” one Buchanan High School student that asked their name not be used said in response to a question on how burnout shows up in his or her daily life.
The feeling was common among students.
Another high school student who wished to remain anonymous responded to the same question saying, “I’ve noticed that I have less patience and I get very heated about little things.”
“And everyday I just feel tired and worn out, even on the days that I do get enough sleep.”
What resources do Clovis schools currently offer for mental health?
During the fall school semester of 2022, Clovis Unified Lead Psychologist John Logan met with student journalist Dilnoor Riar of the Youth Media Collective to discuss current mental health initiatives in the Clovis Unified School District.
According to John Logan, he, his work partner David, and Deputy Superintendent Norm Anderson began broadly discussing ways to support mental health in the school-wide community about five to six years ago following three cases of Clovis area high school students commiting suicide. At the time, Mr. Logan says that in the realm of mental health support, the district just had been “starting from scratch, to a degree.”
A comprehensive wellness project was shortly introduced and today it features mental health providers being available for students at every grade 7 to grade 12 school in the district, a facilitated student support group (which Mr. Logan notes is eight weeks long and has reached around 2,000 students, or 5% of the district’s student population), peer counseling programs, and social-emotional learning programs.
Speaking on behalf of the district, Mr. Logan claims: “I think we fully understand that if we do not focus and provide support in the social-emotional mental health behavioral domains that it will very much impact learning, educational progress, and educational success, and access to schools after high school.”
In the future, Mr. Logan shares that the district plans to bring support to elementary schools and work on its ALL-4-YOUTH program where students can access services from their homes and out in the community.
What can schools do to better support student mental health?
Two-thirds, or 4 of the 6, students interviewed said they feel as though their schools have not done anything to support their mental health. One-third said they did not know if their school was doing anything to support them.
To elaborate on how youth feel their schools are not doing enough to support students’ mental health, a second student at Buchanan High School who spoke anonymously said, “Our school thinks that they are doing something by the Mental Health Awareness Month, but in all reality, we are all already aware that mental health is a serious issue in this generation. I haven’t seen them take any action at all to help me or anyone else who is dealing with depression/anxiety.”
Chief Communications Officer for CUSD Kelly Avants responded to this student’s claim saying that the district knows “that students are struggling with mental health issues and that our efforts around ‘Mental Health Awareness Month’ go far beyond simply raising awareness of the issue itself and the resources available to students at school.”
Avants then summarized current mental health efforts of the district and went on to say that the district is “very proud of the multiple initiative[s] of the CUSD Comprehensive Wellness Project, but we are always looking for ways to improve, and welcome new ideas.”
Some experts say that schools should do more mental health screening and implement multi-tiered systems of support.
For example, the Santa Clara Unified School Districts claims on its website to have district schools use universal screening tools to assess students early in the school year. An appropriate tier of intervention can then be provided to students as additional mental health assessments throughout the year which measure progress reveal individual needs.
An article published by Positive Action supports this type of screening system by emphasizing screening as important for gathering data regarding factors that may interrupt learning outcomes and long-term student success. This claim suggests that putting mental health first means putting learning first.
Ultimately, high school students say their mental health is suffering -- and they’re not always sure how to navigate school support and resources.
