Baron playday has been a semiannual event that has occurred the entire time I have been in high school. This day tries to bring all students out of classrooms to play together. It is supposed to create fun and relieve stress from the students, but it hasn’t.

 In my experience, while most kids like the break from school work, a small break from it doesn’t affect our mental health in the slightest. I find that schools find the “easy way” when it comes to students learning and mental health. They pile loads and loads of school work on us creating stress and find a small way to make it look like they care about mental health and attempt to relieve stress in a way that has no effect. Baron Playday is just one small example of this. The new state law is another great example of this, it states that all schools have to start no earlier than 8:30 am. They said it was put in place to give students more time to sleep but for me and most other students it has done the opposite. Because the school day still has to be a certain number of hours, we just get out way later. Because of this my entire day gets pushed back, I am either late for practice (which causes stress) or have to go to practice an hour later which just means I get out later. By getting into school later my whole day shifts and I end up going to bed way later than I would have. 

School is also only made for a certain type of person. There are very few options for those who do club sports to get PE credit without wasting time in a PE class or those whose minds cannot learn by just being taught at. If you do not do much outside of school the public school system works perfectly fine. But there are very few students whose life works that way. Most people have extracurriculars, jobs, church, and family responsibilities and there is almost no way to get a school schedule that works best for you. The only way to get personalization in your schedule is to go to a private school or homeschool which is simply not an option for the average student. 

As a student I am asking the public school system to fix this. We students cannot stand it any longer. Stop wasting time on wellness spaces that are never used and playdays that do nothing and transform the school system in a way that will work better for students, parents, and teachers. Put in teachers who actually care about a student’s learning and not just a grade. Make personalized schedules for students. Give shorter school days instead of full days wasted on “play”. Let students help with the decisions about our lives. Not everyone is the same and schools need to stop treating them this way. As a student I am begging you, please do better.