Superintendent Michael Beresford comments on the remarkable work being done on mental health awareness. Beresford hopes everything continues to go well.

With mental health awareness week taking place throughout the Carmel school district from Feb. 4 to Feb. 8, CHS has decided to prioritize the stigmatization of mental health problems in schools. According to Superintendent Michael Beresford, mental health is a serious issue which must be talked about and addressed. In particular, students should feel comfortable discussing mental health in the same manner as other ailments.

“I hope that by having awareness weeks and other activities discussing mental health in classrooms that people will embrace improving their mental health. This is going to be a community effort from teachers to parents to students and even administration,” Beresford said.

Moreover, Beresford said he believes the StopIt app is a useful tool for reaching out for help regarding mental health problems for yourself or someone a student may be concerned about.

“I think we have the infrastructure in place to tackle the issue of mental health awareness. It’s now in our hands to use those tools correctly,” Beresford said.

Additionally, deliberations are currently in progress to determine how to make up school days that were missed due to inclement weather.

“We have two built-in flex days which means that if we miss two days of school we won’t have to make up any time. However, since we have now missed four days this year, those two extra days must be made up. Currently, we are considering adding extra days at some point or adding a segment to the end of each school day, but there could be other unexplored options too. In the end, we’ll do what is best for the students,” Beresford said.

According to student body president Tim Metken, a longer school day would be preferable.

“I would much rather have a slightly longer school day because it would be very unfortunate to come to school during June,” Metken said.  By Misha Rekhter 

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