Suburban high schools try to ease up on teen stress

WELLESLEY -- Students often huddle in classrooms and auditoriums at Wellesley High School well past the dinner hour, organizing tsunami relief efforts or rehearsing for the fall musical. Sophomores have to write a 5,000-word research paper; juniors visit as many as 12 prospective colleges. The tension builds through the school year, whether students or their teachers cause it.

This year, Wellesley High said: Enough.

When students head back to class next month, they will no longer get homework during April vacations -- and possibly during winter break. Midyear exams, too, will be history, though end-of-year finals will remain. And if students do not make the high school basketball team this fall, they can play on new intramural teams open to everyone.

Some may call it coddling. But Wellesley parents and teachers say the changes could give students a better-balanced, healthier lifestyle during high school. From ''stress reduction committees" to yoga in gym class, Wellesley, Needham, Wayland, and other high- achieving schools in affluent suburbs are trying to cut their groggy students some slack. They say they recognize that the fierce intensity of college admissions, the spread of college-level Advanced Placement courses, and cutthroat competition among students have created an unhealthy culture.

''Society as a whole is creating a stressful environment," said Rena P. Mirkin, principal of Wellesley High. ''It's not 'Are you achieving?' It's 'Are you achieving with five honors courses, eight clubs, two sports, and three community service activities?' "

Wellesley's actions, which affect students in all grades, were prompted by some of the people responsible for ratcheting up student stress: college admissions officers. In April, Marilee Jones, dean of admissions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, addressed Wellesley parents and students about the poor emotional and physical health she sees in many college applicants. Jones has spoken nationally on the issue and has even reduced the number of lines on MIT's application for listing extracurricular activities.

''College admissions are a huge offender here. We really don't always realize we're offenders because we're just trying to admit the best people," Jones said. ''It's very insidious how this creeps up on us."

She applauded Wellesley's approach. ''It's an act of faith toward the students, but it's just the beginning," she said. ''We need to think about, 'What do they need every day to be healthy?' "

Wellesley High, like many of its suburban peers, can be a competitive place for its 1,140 students. Its website notes 34 sports as well as 60 clubs and student associations. State figures show that 80 percent of Wellesley graduates in 2004 went to four-year private colleges, which families consider a prime barometer of success. The state average is 32 percent.

Wellesley students acknowledge that they put much of the stress on themselves to compete to get into the best universities and please their parents. Senior Yasmine Zeid said she felt guilty about opting for more regularly paced college preparatory courses than her friends, who took tougher Advanced Placement courses. Zeid will take AP psychology this fall. Many of the state's highest-achieving schools offer a dozen or more AP courses, nearly twice the state average.

''I would almost feel a little bit like: I'm not as smart as you, so I'm not going to get into a good college, I'm not going to have a good future, and I'm not going to have a good career," Zeid, 16, said. ''You start thinking about the future, and you get really worried."

Corey Testa is a typical involved Wellesley student. A senior, he has held key roles in plays and is a leader in the school's a cappella group. He helped plan a fund-raiser for victims of the Southeast Asian tsunami that raked in $4,000, and he organized awareness campaigns for an override vote earlier this year. This summer, he is working at a deli in Hull and doing required summer reading for one of his two AP classes this fall.

While Testa is pleased his school is confronting the stress problem, he is unsure whether the measures will work. Will teachers abide by the April vacation homework moratorium or just assign more projects that are due when students return, forcing them to cram over break? Most Wellesley students said they have two to three hours of homework a night on average.

''It's such an intense school where we're always trying to be the best because supposedly we are one of the best," Testa said. ''Teachers can't help but say, 'Work a little harder, do a little more.' Guidance counselors, when they're talking about colleges, say that colleges are looking at Wellesley, so they're saying you've got to do a little better, you've got to do more."

His mother, Donna Testa, said much of the pressure filters down to students from their parents, who discuss college choices at cocktail parties and on soccer fields. She is happy the school is taking action. She said she doesn't pressure her son about his college search, but is aware that others do with their children.

''We're not going to rewrite the world, but maybe slowly we can help kids and parents put things in perspective," said Donna Testa, who helped plan the anti-stress measures this past year. ''From 14 years old, you're bombarded with doing everything with college acceptance in mind. It's insane -- four years of kids' lives shouldn't be devoted to thinking about college."

For similar reasons, Needham High School formed a stress-reduction committee of parents, teachers, and students. Among other things, the group will conduct a survey this year to pin down the sources of tension and develop solutions. Last school year, Newton began creating weekly 25-minute periods where specially trained teachers meet with small groups of ninth-graders to defuse problems, including stress-related issues. Dover-Sherborn Regional High School this year will hold its second annual meeting to inform parents of signs of teenage stress.

Wayland High School tried to hold yoga sessions after school, but it didn't work. ''The kids told us they didn't have enough time to take yoga because they were too stressed," said Charles Ruopp, Wayland High's principal.

Wayland, which also plans to survey students about stress, moved yoga to physical education classes.

Not all schools with high college-bound rates and great test scores have taken steps to ease students' workloads. At Brookline High School, headmaster Robert J. Weintraub said he wants his teachers to demand more, not less. The school would not eliminate midyear final exams, for instance, because they prepare students for the sort of studying they will face in college, he said.

''If we're not going to be rigorous, if we're not going to be demanding, if we're not going to apply stress, I'm not sure we're doing kids a good service," Weintraub said. ''There are so many distractions with computers, cellphones, text messages, TV, music, popular culture, and electronic culture. I'd rather have kids working on math and history and science than text-messaging each other all night long or talking on the phone all night long."

Nationally, the American Academy of Pediatrics is researching teen stress and talking with admissions officers about the problem of overscheduled teenagers. Stanford University's School of Education two years ago started the Stressed Out Students Project, which holds conferences for schools on reducing pressure on young people.

But could these efforts have the opposite effect -- lowering standards for talented students? Wellesley High senior Andrew Peisch, president of the school's student congress, does not think so.

''The main goal from students' perspective at our school is to try to have people take high school for just high school," Peisch, 17, said. ''We're not trying to make school easier; we're not trying to not learn as much. It's just that we're trying to change the outlook."

Anand Vaishnav can be reached at vaishnav@globe.com.