One of the negative impacts of COVID-19 has been the toll the pandemic has taken on adults’ and students’ mental health.
As local municipalities and school districts continue to assess the changes in mental health, the Princeton Youth Advisory Committee (PYAC) sought to address the topic of mental health directly in a forum discussion about potential solutions, current findings, and pandemic effects facing Princeton students and youth.
The panel discussion on March 11 featured Council President Leticia Fraga; Corner House Prevention Programs Coordinator Riva Levy, who is also a clinician at Princeton House Behavioral Health; Princeton Family Institute social worker and clinician Claudia Webster; and Princeton High School senior Yash Roy, who is a student liaison to the Princeton Board of Education.
Princeton High School students are more stressed than ever, and a plan to add more Zoom instruction time to their daily schedules would only make things worse. That was the message students at the high school gave to administrators and the school board at a public Zoom meeting last week that was attended by almost 1,000 people. The meeting lasted more than four hours and was cut off by the board at midnight.
Yash Roy, a student representative to the school board, said March and April plans for changes to the high school schedule that would add more Zoom time caused confusion, frustration, and chaos. Students wanted to have a voice when it came to the changes, but they did not before the changes were presented to them, he said. A survey of his fellow students shows that 85 percent are feeling overly stressed. “Adding instructional time is not going to help that,” Roy said, adding that students need more time to do homework.