Student Advisory Council October 12 Meeting: Mental Health at HHS
Cover design created by Violet Rhoades.
Dylan Frankovis and Jack Fischer
The Student Advisory Council met on October 12 during advisement with Mr. Bauer for the second time this year. The following is a summary of the agenda items discussed between Mr. Bauer and the students involved in the Student Advisory Council.
Mental Health at HHS
Mental health has become a bigger and bigger point of emphasis at Hamilton, specifically stress. Mr. Bauer and the administration want to know the level to which students are stressed at Hamilton as well as what causes this stress level. The students in Student Advisory Council noted main origins of stress being a lack of urgency in class to learn, an unpredictable amount of homework, the amount of time spent on extracurricular activities, hard deadlines with short notice, as well as just getting through the start of the year. The consensus was that overall stress is coming from a large workload that students struggle with, but every student's stress is unique so there is no one solution to solving the issue of stress at Hamilton. Ideas for solving the issue for some students include:
Having more guidance counselor visits to help manage stress
Creating a sheet to put up in classes that would list ways to deal with stress
Having more work done in gym classes to learn about mental health
Having more purpose in the advisement mental health lesson days
Scheduling in advance to let students know about what home advisement days are focused on mental health lessons
Putting students on the committee that helps decide what to do for mental health lessons during the summer to have more student input in the lesson process
Adjusting the end-of-semester Infinite Campus policy where students cannot see their grades, either to remove the grade-blocking or limiting the amount of assignment updates that students receive
