Update, Dec. 2, 10 p.m.: This story has been updated to clarify that religious holidays do not count toward the absence threshold.

The Laboratory Schools urges students to take days off for mental and physical health reasons or religious holidays, yet students say the pressure to be in class overrides the opportunity to miss school. 

Some feel that academic pressure is the cause and that the stakes of succeeding in school shouldn’t be so high. 

Senior Orly Eggener attended school on Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, despite having the option to miss school. Her reason? Too much work.

“I would’ve wanted to if I felt like I wouldn’t be totally stressed out after, but I had a paper that week, and I don’t do well if I don’t learn a math lesson in person, and I just thought it would be too hard,” Orly said. “It didn’t feel like it would be the right choice.”

U-High allows students up to 20 absences a year with a limit of 10 per semester. While that may seem like a lot, they can quickly be used for recovery from sickness and stress. Religious holidays do not count toward the absence threshold.

“You’re up late and it sometimes feels like there’s no break, and even if you’re not in the best place, it’s really hard to miss school,” Orly said.

A lot of seniors share her sentiment. With so much to prepare for college, having time off is necessary, especially considering the amount of burnout students feel. 

“For mental health days,” senior Hana Javed said, “it’s really important — especially for upperclassmen with everything that’s going on with college and preparing for our futures — it’s important to take some time to rest because otherwise we’re all just going to burn out.”

Hana says it’s not fair to teachers either, and the same applies to sick days. Instead of staying home, sniffling and sneezing students roam school hallways. 

“No one wants people who are sick to come to school,” Hana said. “So, it just makes the whole environment just more isolated — because people don’t want to hang out with a sick person — but they shouldn’t even be there when they’re sick.”

Sick students should stay home and rest instead of exposing others, but they say the fear of missing school surpasses that need. Even if an absence is excused, missing school is too risky. 

“You have to email all of your teachers,” Orly said, “and it’s fair, but they probably won’t get back to you that soon and respond when you need to do the homework, so it keeps piling up.”

Students feel the school should have a more sound absence plan, with specific excused absence slips for mental health days and religious holidays. 

It’s not just seniors who feel this way. Sophomore Arjun Sawhney says students should be granted more time to complete the work they’d been assigned while gone. 

“If you miss one day of school,” he said, “you really miss a lot, and you end up spending your mental health day re-doing what was done in class.”

While the answer is unclear, the situation raises the question: Why are the stakes of school so high that students feel they can’t miss even one day of school to rest, recover or observe faith? 

Dean of Students Ana Campos says that it is only a perception, and students push themselves to do their best to be strong applicants for the nation’s top universities, not realizing they’ll do fine wherever they go.

“This idea that there’s just a small, small group of schools that are, like, ‘If you go there, you’re successful, and if you go anywhere else, good luck,’ is toxic.” 

Ms. Campos says she is constantly trying to provide support for students, whether that’s through offering mental health days or giving students the freedom to design their own schedules.

“That’s a part of the process here. We want students to really learn how to navigate and manage their time,” she said. “Initially, people are like, ‘Oh my god. This is amazing, this is awesome.’ But if they don’t use their time well, quickly they’re gonna start to feel overwhelmed because everything’s gonna start to catch up with them.”

Even if it’s using a few of the free lab periods to meet with teachers or visit the writer’s center, Ms. Campos says students are given lots of opportunities to receive help, so they can take the time to observe religious holidays or take a stress-free mental health day.

“Almost everything we do at Lab,“ she said, “we give kids autonomy.”