In a 2025-26 research study by and about high school students, fifty percent reported feeling stressed most days of the week. Of those, half said that stress interferes with their ability to function—getting schoolwork done, meeting their own expectations, and showing up the way they want to in daily life. And perhaps most startling of all, only 11% felt there was an adult in their school they could talk to about their mental health.

These numbers didn’t come from a national survey company or a university lab. They came from two seniors at Mamaroneck High School, Zakir Strugatskiy and Gray Hackett, working through a program called OCRA—Original Civic Research and Action.

Original Civic Research and Action in Action

OCRA is a four-year journey in real-world civics. It starts freshman year with a grounded look at how local and state government actually work: who makes decisions in your town, village, and county; what they’re responsible for; and how power is distributed. From there, it ramps up. Students identify a real problem in their community, research it, engage with stakeholders, and design and implement a project to address it.

Zakir and Gray chose to take on one of the most pressing and least visible issues facing students today: mental health and stigma in high school. Their first instinct was to address “affordable mental health care” across the broader community, but they quickly realized that was too broad for a student-led project. After conversations with local organizations—including the Larchmont-Mamaroneck Community Counseling Center—they narrowed their focus to where they had the most access and insight: the daily mental health experience of students in High School, and specifically at Mamaroneck High School.

Research into High School Student Stress and Wellness

They created and ran a survey that reached about 260 students, roughly 15% of the school. They asked about stress levels, awareness of school-based mental health resources, comfort in talking about mental health, and whether the required health class actually helps students support themselves or their peers.

What they found was deeply concerning:

• 60% of students did not know any of the nine school social workers or psychologists.
• 50% felt stressed most days of the week.
• Of those, 50% said that stress inhibits their daily life.
• Only 11% felt they could speak to any faculty or staff member about their mental health.
• Only around 13% felt health class helped them support themselves in a mental health struggle, and about 11% felt it helped them support others—with a significant overlap between those groups.

As I said to them during our conversation, “These numbers are not just data points; they’re a mirror held up to how we, as adults and institutions, are failing to create spaces where kids can be honest, heard, and supported.”

If you’re reading this, how is this playing out in your schools? How do you know?

How Do We Help Students Overcome High Stress

Zakir and Gray didn’t stop at describing the problem. They researched solutions and proposed a specific, evidence-based response: implementing the internationally accepted program Youth/Teen Mental Health First Aid in the school. This program teaches students and adults to:

• Recognize the signs of mental health challenges,
• Listen non‑judgmentally,
• Offer reassurance, and
• Connect peers to appropriate professional and self‑help resources.

It’s built around a clear action plan and delivered through scenarios, discussions, and small-group work, not just lectures and handouts.

To get there, they have had invaluable support from their mentor, mental health professional Lina Pasquale, and their OCRA teacher and faculty advisor Joseph Liberti, along with supportive administrators and social workers. With that team, they discovered an important implementation requirement: before Youth/Teen Mental Health First Aid can be fully embedded, at least 10% of the faculty must be trained in Teen Mental Health First Aid.

So they built a concrete plan. Over the summer, they will present to teachers and invite them to a one-day training conducted by Lina Pasquale, who is certified to teach Teen Mental Health First Aid. Once that threshold is reached, younger OCRA students will take the baton next year—working with school leadership to integrate the training into health classes or another appropriate setting, and launching a pilot program with sophomores at Mamaroneck High School.

Watching their work unfold, I told them, “This is what authentic civic education looks like: young people using data, persistence, and empathy to change the systems they live in.” And it’s not just technical competence—they’re modeling emotional wisdom as well. Gray urged us to be curious, not judgmental—about our own feelings and others’. Zakir emphasized the importance of being open to talking, even when it feels uncomfortable, because that’s how people find support and realize they’re not alone.

Their project is already shifting how one high school thinks about mental health—moving from a checkbox approach in health class toward a more relational, skills-focused model rooted in students’ lived reality. As I said to them at the end of our conversation, “When we see high school students driving real change in their own community, it gives us a reason to be hopeful about where we’re headed.”

This is exactly the kind of work we need young people doing as a society: identifying real problems, listening carefully, gathering evidence, collaborating with adults, and pushing for humane, systemic change that makes their schools—and our communities—healthier places for everyone.

I know how easy it is for adults to dismiss these findings:

• These are only high school student not professional researchers.
• It’s only surveys taken at one school
• It’s only 260 interviews
• Our school and our students are okay

Personally, I look at this as earnest work by two people who had professional coaching and who have no axe to grind. Mamaroneck High School is generally ranked in the top 5% of High Schools nationally. No, most likely your school and your students are not okay either.

How can anyone not find the mental health research compelling and unnerving?

It’s worth listening to the entire half hour interview.