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That's when you call them in sick, you don't need to have an official system in place for "mental heath days", you lie and say you're sick. If you're using all your physical health days already plus you need mental health days then maybe the problem is you. Take an "unexcused absence" if you need more and suck it up. Jesus, people sure have to complicate everything. Actually this looks like a bid for attention "muh mental health!" type of thing. Nobody cares.
Working in education in an urban area means most people use their sick days as mental health reboots or decompress days. It is the understood, unspoken rule that you just call and say "I won't be in today." It is understood and unquestioned. It is far better for the class to have a sub and do some busy work during the day then to have a stressed out teacher make a big mistake or lose it on a child. It's an incredibly stressful job, and from time to time you just need a break. The administration of my last job understood this thankfully and supported us when they saw we needed that break.
I guess actually calling them "mental health days" is positive in the fact that it acknowledges mental health as an important aspect of well-being. Why do we, as a society, only value physical ailments as legitimate?
I see the value in mental health days. What I don't understand is how they need to be different from a regular sick day.
I don't think most schools require a doctor's note to be out for a day, do they? So, who cares why a kid is out. If the kid needs it and the parent is on board, take a sick day. Or is it an attempt to normalize mental health as a legitimate issue? Otherwise, I'm not understanding the need for the distinction.
^^This. Most districts do not require documentation unless a certain number of days have been missed in a row, and students are not penalized for the semester (i.e. required to make anything up) unless they've missed so many days. If a parent is making a judgment call their child's mental health requires them to miss a day, maybe they need to use one of their sick days. If it starts to require a large number of days each semester to the point where you'd need a note were it a physical ailment... at that point probably they should be looking into seeing a doctor/therapist anyway so it would perhaps be better if the rules didn't differentiate mental health from other types of health.
I used to let my sons take a couple of mental health days during the school year. I think it was only a few times they actually took them. Some weeks you just need an extra day off.
That's when you call them in sick, you don't need to have an official system in place for "mental heath days", you lie and say you're sick. .
No one is lying--the sentence is just incomplete: "sick of school".
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