Pennsylvania could soon join a dozen states allowing students to take mental health days.
Last Thursday, the Democrat-led House Education Committee voted to advance a bill to allow students to take up to three mental health days without requiring a doctor's excuse.
Montgomery County Representative Napoleon Nelson wants to let students know he's doing what he can to help better their mental health.
“For the students, it’s okay to not be okay just know that there’s help available everywhere, both in school and out of school, just make sure that you speak up,” said Nelson.
Over the last three years the PA School Boards Association survey of school leaders said that student's mental health issues are the biggest instructional challenge they've faced, while adding 60% of their students had mental health needs.
Nelson says that can take a toll.
“Mental health is perhaps more important than a student’s physical health,” said Nelson. “There’s so much that you are able to physically overcome when you’re mentally in the right space, and if you’re not in the right space mentally nothing else is really going to matter.”
Nelson proposed introducing mental health days as a way to ease the shortage of school counselors for students.