Wellness days were designed to help students relax and have an afternoon off from their normally rigourous and busy schedules. Although there were good intentions to creating these so called “stress busting” days, they are pretty much useless.
To begin, wellness days are usually held in place of periods five, six, and seven, when there is a testing block in the morning for exams such as the PSAT. When juniors and sophomores take the PSAT, they must come in on time, whereas seniors and freshmen are able to come late because the test is not as crucial for those students. The issue with this is that most students would much rather stay home and do “wellness activities” from the comfort of their own house.
The struggle for seniors and freshmen who are not taking the PSAT is figuring out a ride to and from school. While seniors can drive themselves, freshmen do not yet have their licenses, and with most parents at work by noon, it makes finding a ride quite the hassle.. Who would want to go through all the effort to have a fun day at school when they could just have their own fun day at home?
I understand the premise of wanting to give students a relaxing afternoon after a long and difficult test, but the execution of the stress free day is gone about the wrong way. This obstacle causes many juniors and sophomores to simply go home right after the PSAT while many seniors and freshmen just don’t come at all. Instead, a random wellness day during the semester would be a more exciting and smarter implementation for students.
The solution to this issue starts with administration picking two random normal school days in the year (maybe one in each semester). Then, one day they hold wellness activities in the morning (in place of periods one through four) and then the next day they do the opposite (wellness activities in place of periods 5-7). After wellness, students would just attend the rest of their periods and vice versa for the second day they choose.
Having the exact same schedule every day for a whole semester can get monotonous, which is why adding a wellness morning/afternoon day each semester would be a refreshing and fun change for students. Yes, students may be missing class, but instead of just going home, they would be participating in activities that could truly help them relax and have a morning or afternoon to just let loose and have fun while being at school.
