“I’m here tonight because as a student in full IB, someone who is lucky in that school has always come easy to me, someone who loves learning and is always up for a challenge, I am drowning. I am drowning in the amount of work I have to balance while worrying about getting my loved ones sick. I’m drowning in the fear of getting COVID-19 and having to quarantine for five days of school that I cannot afford to miss,” Tualatin senior Hannah Figueroa Velázquez said at the Tigard-Tualatin School Board meeting on Jan. 10. 

Several students spoke on behalf of their peers during a public comment period at the meeting.

After only one week back at school following winter break, several students found themselves empathizing with Figueroa Velázquez’s statement. The week of Jan. 3, for many, was filled with anxiety due to an unprecedented spike in COVID cases. 

Attending school amidst this chaotic, often stressful week-and-a-half made students re-evaluate the root cause of their lack of focus and inability to keep up with high standards of academic performance. 

“My worries have manifested physically,” senior Emily Phuong Tran added. “I get so anxious coming to school that I’ve been getting headaches, napping for two hours after school. I blame myself because I know I could’ve used that time to do my homework. The looming threat of finals has created so much guilt and doubt of my abilities. I keep asking myself why I can’t handle it all. I am hanging by a thread. I keep wondering when I’m going to snap.”

This feeling of being stretched thin is not uncommon. Students argued that these overwhelming emotions of self-doubt stem from the often-unacknowledged pressure and stress that the pandemic is persistently placing on not only students, but teachers and staff, as well. 

Attending school in-person with such high rates of COVID cases is something that has never occurred in this capacity since the pandemic began, until that first week back from break. Speakers asserted that it shouldn’t take several students sharing their vulnerable and real feelings to see that; the numbers alone tell their own narrative. 

“There has been a 675 percent increase in cases in only the last 14 days, and the projected peak of Omicron cases according to CDC (The Center for Disease Control and Prevention) is Jan. 26. Our projected finals date is currently that very same week,” Aishiki Nag, a junior at Tigard High School, explained. “Our mental health is suffering, and it’s causing many people to prioritize their grades over their general wellbeing.” 

Students feel their health, both mentally and physically, should be at the forefront of everyone’s minds, especially during this time. Instead, many feel that the pressure of staying caught up in school is too overbearing and unrealistic– not to mention the lack of truly formative, accessible mental health resources there currently are. 

“With the sharp rise of COVID cases, the stress it brings is causing a steady decline in our mental health, yet no one knows how to get the help they need. It feels like we only have three options. First we talk to our doctor and get unaffordable, inaccessible help. Two, go to a crisis line, which is not what we need. Or three, talk to a school counselor, which sounds great, but it’s not what they’re trained for, and they’re already overworked,” Tigard sophomore Owen Albrecht expressed. 

As we transition from online distance learning back to in person, students hope district officials will keep in mind these very pressing and valid feelings and circumstances. While the only option at this point is to accept a society so influenced by the COVID pandemic, they say, we can’t forget that what students, staff and millions of others are facing is notably far from normal.