Wellness Activities Aim to Support Students Before Finals Week

By Jetsun Jungney and Melia Oliver

This year there will be no “dead week” at Albany High. Instead, the week before finals will be called “wellness week,” with three days of planned events January 15-17. With this change, organizers hope to decrease stress culture and improve the overall health of students.

According to a New York Universitystudy, 49 percent of students at high-performing high schools reported feeling a great deal of stress on a daily basis. In addition, 26 percent of students reported symptoms of clinical depression. This level of stress goes on throughout the year.

Each day of wellness week will have a different theme: physical health, mental health, and community health. According to MacGregor High School counselor Diane Peterson, one of the planners behind wellness week, organizers hope to create an atmosphere of education, healing, and collaboration during the week before finals.

“We might have some dress up days, some games, just fun [to show that] we're in this together instead of we’re in this against each other,” Ms. Peterson said.

Leadership advisor Hannah Edber said, “We want students to feel like while school may be a source of stress, it can also be a source of comradery, solidarity, [and] comfort.” She also said that organizers “would love feedback or ideas that people have” to improve the week’s events in the future.

Peterson said that planners have several goals for wellness week.

“[We want] to acknowledge that school is really stressful for kids here, to give kids some tools to deal with stress, but also to remind people that you're not alone in your stress [...] and there are ways we can support each other.”