Schools consider mental health days for students

Florida is the latest state that is considering to allow students an excused absence for taking a mental health day away from school.

Oregon allows five mental health days per school year.

The current Ohio Revised Code policy does not list mental health or behavioral problems as one of the excused absences for kids in public schools.

If a child is absent, they must provide a doctor’s note to be excused for illness.

Erin Wiley, a licensed professional clinical counselor at The Willow Center says she’s written many notes for young patients to take back to school after appointments and urges a child’s mental health is just as important as physical health.

"We've always needed doctors to take care of our bodies and we've always needed to value ourselves emotionally psychologically and spiritually,” says Wiley.

Wiley "With this law that they're passing, what it's really doing is acknowledging and validating that kids do have mental health struggles and sometimes need time off because of them. Just like adults."

13abc reached out to Toledo Public Schools to see if new mental health absence policies could be implemented in the future.

TPS sent this statement:

“The current Toledo Public Schools attendance policy does not list mental health as an excused absence per the State of Ohio attendance laws. However, there will be further discussions in the future related to student mental health and absences from school.”