Horizon Charter School is making serious efforts to raise mental health awareness among students in an attempt to improve the school dropout rate.

Mental health has been a rising issue for many years now, taking a toll on many high school students. According to data collected by the National Center for Education Statistics, in 2021 nearly one-third of the student population experienced poor mental health. 

Mental health can significantly impact a student’s academic success and risk of dropping out.

Horizon’s graduation rate significantly decreased from 80.3% in 2022 to 72.9% in 2023.  According to the Youth Risk Surveillance study, 43% of dropouts report the reason was related to mental health struggles.

“If our students have any sort of anxiety or depression or something,” said Erin Parnell, Horizon’s school psychologist, “that might lead them to engage in some procrastination behaviors, they tend to withdraw, and can get worse in this environment.”

Christina Wells, Horizon’s special education teacher, has been partnering with the On Demand Learning English classes in an attempt to improve this ongoing issue. Wells takes the role of reaching out to parents and students struggling to get to class and complete work. This has helped students, she said.

“They’ve seen a significant improvement in learning with another teacher being there and holding them accountable and supporting them,” Wells said.

Her role has helped these students, and it has also brought attention to the issue of procrastination and withdrawal many students are facing. 

Horizon has organized meetings dedicated to struggling students. Starting this year, Kid Talks have been available to students as a place for students to be understood and get any extra help they might need.

“It has been fairly successful with creating plans for kids or helping clarify what the expectations are for kids and break down what they need,” Parnell said.

Depression and anxiety have become increasingly more common, growing 25% since 2020 according to the World Health Organization. That has led to schools trying to figure out how to provide more resources for struggling students.

Kid Talks are a way for teachers to provide that for students. Teachers play a huge role in students’ academic lives, but they could also influence their mental health. 

“The teacher population … has started to shift their emphasis a little bit more toward mental health and mental health practices, just as a part of how they meet with their students,” Parnell said.

For Horizon teachers and administrators, the goal is to do what it takes to help students. 

“Our main focus right now,” Wells said, “has been how we can continue to support them.”