One High School Senior’s Mission To Get More Mental Health Education In Class

It’s now been nearly two years since the U.S. Surgeon General warned about a mental health crisis among the nation’s youth, citing increases in depression and anxiety exacerbated by the pandemic.

The state is allocating billions of dollars to the issue, with Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office calling attention to chronic sadness and major depressive episodes among California’s kids.

For Culver City High School senior Emi Sakamoto, the so-called "youth mental health crisis" is not some abstract concept. Instead, it brings up visceral images:

“Sitting in classrooms right before a test and seeing how many legs are shaking, how many kids have their heads on their desks ... the eyes that I see as I’m walking through hallways, the bathroom stalls that I walk in with just plumes of vape smoke,” Sakamoto said.

Sakamoto remembered a formative moment from class a couple years back. Distraught after the death of her grandfather, she was crying when a classmate she rarely talked with silently offered her hand.

“And we just sat there for 15, 20 minutes ... What I needed in that moment was just some recognition of ‘I’m here for you,’” she said.

Sakamoto wants to be there in the same way for her fellow students by advocating for more mental health education. And she believes there’s a lack of instruction on fundamental skills on how the mind works and “how to develop a baseline mental wellbeing that every single student needs in order to succeed in life.”

Sakamoto said she felt complicit if she didn’t speak up, so she decided to do something about the suffering she experienced at school.

What she is calling for

With the help of a supportive school counselor and other mentors, Sakamoto authored a resolution that cleared the Culver City Unified School District Board of Education in May. It paves the way for mental health literacy to become a core educational component for every K-12 student each year. It also directs the superintendent to make mental health literacy a graduation requirement.

Meanwhile, a state bill that was signed into law in 2021 will soon require schools to expand mental health instruction. The curriculum for many California schools will include teaching kids about anxiety and depression and about serious mental illnesses, including schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. The law requires that the California Department of Education “develop a plan to expand mental health instruction in California public schools on or before January 1, 2024.”

Sakamoto and others would like to see the state effort go further.

Limitations of the current law

For one, it only applies to schools that already have a dedicated health course.

The California Health Education Standards currently direct schools to teach impacts of nutritional choices, the effects of drugs and alcohol and some basic mental health concepts, too. But 40% of school districts in the state don’t teach health at all and won’t be required to comply.

Sakamoto would like to see the mental health education requirements applied to schools that don’t have a dedicated health course. She also wants mental health literacy taught every year in elementary and middle school and at least in 9th and 10th grade.

Sakamoto said she’s hoping to work with state Senator Anthony Portantino and others to bring more mental health education to kids across the state. And the urgency of her efforts was audible in her voice.

“Students are saying, ‘We’re stressed out,” Sakamoto said. “We’re worried about our grades but we’re also struggling internally.”