The Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools Board of Education voted unanimously on Thursday to add three mental wellness days to the 2021-2022 calendar, with the goal of giving students and faculty time off to decompress during the school year.
The board approved a resolution that will make Tuesday, Nov. 23, Wednesday, Nov. 24 and Monday, Feb. 14 designated mental wellness days for the district. On these days, students and faculty will not attend school.
Monday, Nov. 22 will be an optional teacher workday, so students will be out of school for the entire week of Thanksgiving. The resolution stated this would be helpful for parents and caregivers who are planning for childcare and holiday travel.
The board said it opted to implement this policy amid concerns from both students and faculty about their collective mental health as students have tried to adjust back to in-person learning since the start of the school year.
Madi Lin, a senior and the student body president of Chapel Hill High School, spoke to the board about what she described as “a mental health crisis at the high school level.” Lin is also the president of Chapel Hill High School's chapter of Bring Change 2 Mind, an organization dedicated to ending the stigma surrounding mental illness.
“Our students are struggling," Lin told the board. "Our teachers and administration have been stretched even further than they had been while we were remote."
Brian Link, a teacher at East Chapel Hill High School, described some of the challenges that faculty have faced during the pandemic.
During the board's meeting on Thursday, Link said students and teachers have faced threats of weapons on campus, vandalism with racial slurs, verbal harassment and physical assault during the previous week alone. These events have placed strain on instructors who, Link said, are already tasked with teaching, providing counsel to students, monitoring halls and working lunch and bus duty.
He added that he believes time off may help provide some much-needed relief.
