Jasmyn Billy and Tatiana Guandique
Written on November 12, 2024
The staff and students at James Logan High School share their opinions regarding no longer having a wellness center and the lack of funding with the school. With the lack of funding the school has this year, we had asked a Logan staff member who has been a part of the Logan community for 24 years. The staff member we asked gave us insight into her opinion and how she has been helping and supporting her students regarding their mental health. We asked students and they also gave their opinions about how things are going when it comes to mental health at the school and how they think we can build a better community for everyone when it comes to mental health at the school.
One of the students we asked is Marissa Majarucon. When asked how they felt regarding the fact that we don’t have a wellness center anymore, they stated that “It feels really sad, knowing that people who’d go there all the time to either rest, talk to someone, or feel safe can’t go there anymore. Especially teachers who’d help them and possibly teachers that students trusted no longer have that job.”
Nathaniel Richardson, a senior, responded “Mental health problems have gone up since becoming a highschooler and people have always had a positive experience, it’s also very important for students to have a wellness center and for them to know it’s always there if you need it, but now it’s gone.” When asked if it was fair for the wellness center to be taken away at this time in the world. This goes to show that even people that didn’t go to the wellness center care that it’s gone because it was something other students liked and had positive experiences.
With everything being said so far just from the students, the Courier is able to understand that students need the wellness center and would love for it to come back. With that being said Leeann Nunez, a senior at James Logan, said, “Educating others is an amazing way to spread awareness and its importance will bring more attention and support.” Change and advocacy takes a lot of time and energy, but the best thing we can do currently is to just let people know about what’s going on and bring awareness towards mental health and bring back the wellness center.” We asked for students’ opinions regarding if the school takes mental health as seriously as they should. Marissa Majarucon said if they think the school is taking mental health seriously this is what they had to say, “I think some teachers should lower the workload or give time to understand what a student might be going through. Some teachers just give work with no time to ‘breathe’ which can put pressure on students and ruin their mental health.”
Without the wellness center, counselors have been suddenly thrust into the main support for students’ mental health. Ren Garcia expresses her opinion that counselors should have training to help students out when it comes to mental health.” They could also hire actual psychiatrists to work at the school”. With that all being said we asked Ms. Diaz as a teacher what she does with her students for mental health. A few things that Ms.Diaz said that she does with her students are giving them tools to work with themselves and for the people around them, working on positive affirmations, and noticing negative talk that goes on in our mind and turning that into positive talk.
With everything being said we hope that we do end up getting the wellness center back and that advocating for the wellness center, having staff understand the stress that students go through on a daily basis with work from each class. Bring attention to mental health for students and how the school took away something that helped students. We hope that this helps people understand why the wellness center meant a lot to students here at James Logan high school. “Prioritizing yourself isn’t selfish, it’s a necessity,” said Diaz.
