You start to sweat, you dread opening your computer, you start to shake from the fear of being in school…it’s school phobia. Having school phobia feels like waking up and being happy and healthy and then entering the doors of school and automatically feeling sweatier, lost and nervous. My school phobia stems from the pressure I put on myself to get good grades so I can get into a good college. I was diagnosed with school phobia soon after I was diagnosed with a severe anxiety disorder that was causing me to not want to come to school.

Believe it or not, school phobia is a real disorder. Yes, the fear of school. Most students endure the feeling of school phobia once or twice in their life, but some students deal with this intense fear of coming to school everyday of their lives. This fear can affect students grades and their overall mental health. The truth is that most students who are struggling to come to school may have other problems occuring. The more one fears school, the more chances they have to become depressed or have extreme anxiety disorders.

Solon High School (SHS) student Sophia Ferrazza, who suffers from school phobia, shared her school phobia experience.

“Students have fears of going to school because of the school environment that we all must live in, students are stressed about going to school because of what could be happening in the schools around ours as well,” Ferrazza said. “I have a personal connection to school phobia, because of my anxiety I talk with counselors in the school to help with my fear of school and how I hate coming everyday.”

The trend of students being stressed to the limit of school phobia is an increasing epidemic. Students are growing new found fears due to tests, teachers, homework and the scary world we live in.The students are struggling with these topics more than they did in the past because in today’s society there is much more pressure on young adults to succeed. When it comes to school shootings and lockdowns, this brings fear to the student body.  

School counselor Ann Trocchio expressed her fear for generation Z by saying, “I do believe with generation Z that there’s some alarming things that jump out,” said Trocchio. “For example, all of you since you’ve been in school have only known that there could be violence in schools. You’ve never gone to school without knowing that there could be a shooting or that there’s horrible situations in society that could happen at your school at anytime.”

Some SHS students feel the school doesn’t do enough to help the stress level of their students.

SHS is aware of the extreme amounts of stress that connect to school and are in the process of coming up with ideas to fix the problem, at least at school.

“There’s a lot of reasons why teens do not feel comfortable, usually due to stress levels, pressure, anxiety, social situations, fear of being called on in class, fear of not having friends and maybe from past experience. Due to the way our students are feeling we have been trying to create new ways for students to be more relaxed,” said Trocchio. “Teachers met and came up with a new theme, “happy teachers, happy students, because if you have a happy teachers then you have happy students. We have also created a mindful room in the school counseling office. This room would be used when students are stressed or upset, they could go into a mindful room. There’s a sound machine with beach sounds, thunderstorms and rain. We have also included nine fractions of yoga that are full into our curriculum.”

Coping skills known to help children who suffer school phobia are yoga, deep breathing, mindfulness and less use of  social medias and other technologies.

The school has also been trying to do subtle things to make SHS more mindful. Now, when you look around the school there are gratitude boards hanging everywhere made by students, parents and teachers.

SHS can’t get rid of all the stressors in students lives, so they provide things like clubs and sports that make students feel happy. These activities are created  in the hopes that they will think of school as welcoming instead of scary.

One doesn’t always know what the people around you are going through, students may seem fun and nice out of school, but the minute they get in school they become distant and sad. There may be a very real reason and that could be school phobia.