The Mycenaean

High school students in movies are often depicted as students who work and study the hardest are the ones with the worst mental health. 

The 1980s popular movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off depicts the high school students Ferris, Cameron, and Sloann taking the day off from school. Cameron is always stressed out, due to his fathers money, high standards are set even higher than usual. 

Throughout the movie, Cameron learns to let go with the help of his friends. High school students everywhere are constantly stressing out about life, friends, and grades in school. 

The app PowerSchool enables students to see their grades and receive notifications when their grades change. 

“Even though grade stress has always been present, it seems to be more common with this grading system, with many students becoming stressed due to pressure from home, pressure about the future, and sometimes even pressure from other students,” said Adel V. 

While students receive pressure from their parents, they too get the notification on their devices. 

“When I get a grade, put into PowerSchool, my mom sees it immediately. If it is bad then she starts texting me, freaking out. The whole notification system is nice but it definitely puts an extra level of stress on school,” said Hannah Morris, junior.

“This, therefore, provides a mentality relying primarily on grades, not effort. Ms. Stewart also believes that the functions of PowerSchool cause us to lose context of one assignment versus another, because the impact an assignment has on your grade is dependent upon the number of tasks that have been scored so far during the quarter,” said Adel V. 

PowerSchool adds an extra level of stress to education. School is already stressful with tests, exams, and loads of class work.

While deleting the app could serve as a temporary fix for the problem, checking grades is an important part of student life and student responsibilities. 

Overall, PowerSchool, while being a useful tool for education, also has its drawbacks to students causing stress and anxiety.