As of September 2nd, NDB decided to hold mandatory meetings every Wednesday, during our asynchronous workday. When interviewing students from different grade levels, the answer was unanimous: people believe that Wednesday meetings should not be mandatory. The toll that online schooling has on students’ and teachers’ mental health is apparent, and having more mandatory screen time on Wednesdays only adds to the stress.

When interviewing senior Samantha Sutter, she was asked about her stance on having mandatory life skills classes. “I don’t think the Wednesday life skills classes will be valuable to me. I see multiple professionals for my mental health and life issues,” said Sutter. “For people who don’t have these resources, the Wednesday classes may be beneficial if they are done properly, but I don’t think they should be mandatory for those that see professionals or don’t find the classes useful to them.”

She said that while Wednesday classes may be good for some, making them mandatory for all students is not as beneficial across the board.

Junior Sage Sapperstein said that having mandatory meetings on Wednesdays will have a definite impact on her mental health. “By forcing me to stare at a screen and do activities that I honestly have no interest in doing is going to make me feel so much worse, both mentally and physically,” Sapperstein said.

Wednesday classes will limit the already minuscule free time students have for themselves, and there will be consequences that follow.

Do you think that Wednesdays should be an asynchronous work day, or should we have mandatory meetings?

• Wednesdays should be a work day
• We should have mandatory meetings on Wednesdays

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There have been offered arguments that letting upperclassmen have the option to go to these meetings, or not, is fair due to their workload. Sophia Vahabi, a current sophomore, said, “ I think it’s fair to give them Wednesdays off because they probably have a lot going on but overall I think Wednesdays off for everyone is a good idea. Class meetings are nice but other than that I think it can get stressful”.

Although upperclassmen have college applications and a heavy workload, which adds to stress, lowerclassmen are struggling with making social connections, and also need to navigate time management with their workload. Having Wednesdays to help students manage their time, and take time to be off of a computer screen, will help reduce their stress.

Jude Loeffler, a teacher in the NDB Mathematics Department, was asked about how the difference in the learning environment affects both teachers’ and students’ mental health. “Does it take a toll on everybody? Absolutely, it’s the social interaction, it’s seeing people, standing in the hallways saying good morning to people that I, that I don’t get to do,” said Loeffler. “In order to interact with people, I’ve got to sacrifice 15-20 minutes of teaching time, and that spills over to homework time”.

He and other teachers are attempting to make the same personal connections with students that they could when we were back in a physical school, but distanced learning has made those connections requiring more effort to be made. He said that understands the argument of people paying full tuition, and expect there to be five days of school per week. However, to offer a counter-argument, he said, “Wednesday isn’t really a free day it’s not a day for you [students] to just kick back and blow off the whole day like its a Sunday.”

Teachers are also taking time on Wednesdays for meetings, and to make lesson plans, which require more effort than it did in the physical classroom. With this being said, Wednesdays should be used to catch up on assignments, meet with teachers, or to get time away from the screen to reduce the stress of students, and there should be no mandatory meetings.