Students tell meeting high school is stressful and urge more support and belonging

Several students speaking at a meeting described high school as a difficult, stressful time and urged adults to provide steady support and opportunities to build belonging.

Student 1, a student, said, "I see their potential and I know that not everyone does and I just want them to always have someone that supports them." Student 2, a student, added, "I feel like high school is 1 of the hardest moments in your life." Student 3 and Student 4 emphasized the practical and social pressures students face: "We have a hard time with time management and sometimes we just let things stack and stack," Student 3 said, and Student 4 said, "High school's hard enough as it is, and there's a bunch of students who, especially at their houses, they don't have the support that they need to get through high school."

Speakers described specific sources of pressure that affect students' sense of belonging and ability to learn. "You have so much stress, so much pressure with, like, Aspire, ACT, college, focusing on that," Student 2 said. Student 1 framed belonging as tied to learning: "Because I really believe that if people feel like they are safe and belong, that they can be connected and they're able to learn. Because when you're feeling insecure or uncomfortable, it's a lot harder to learn."

Students also discussed classroom practices they said help build inclusion. Student 1 said her students "know that from day 1 that they're always going to be assigned a seat and that they will learn to work with who they're sitting by because they have to work with people they may not always get along with or choose." Student 4 spoke to the value of diversity: "I think it's important to have diversity so that you can learn about other people and realize that everybody's the same in 1 way or another." Student 3 described classroom discussion as balancing fun with "serious conversations," and Student 3 said course material can be "inspiring for kindness and helping others."

The remarks were delivered as discussion-level testimony; no motions or formal actions were made or recorded during the excerpts provided. The speakers repeatedly framed stress and belonging as factors that influence students' mental health and academic success and asked for consistent adult support and inclusive classroom practices.