“It's time to start measuring schools the same way we measure our nations and companies —with quality of life as a metric.”
- Hillary Wen, Hildy Wen
write a letter to your school administration
Our mission is to establish Quality of Student Life as a nation-wide metric for school success. We believe a standardized measure of student life is overdue in our education system and seek your support in correcting this oversight.
QSLI student activists are leading a global movement to reform education policy and prioritize student wellbeing in the school experience. Implementing this metric will allow us to effectively compare school progress, identify points of improvement, and ultimately build a better education experience for all students.
Your actions make a difference, and pave the way for lasting change. Write a letter to your school to tell them about the Quality of Student Life Index (QSLI), and ask them to partcipate in the QSLI validation studies and administer the QSLI at your school.
If you share your information with us on the right, we’re also happy to submit a letter on your behalf.
SAMPLE LETTER
Dear Superintendent,
Mental health, particularly in young adults, is one of our nation’s greatest challenges.
Historically, schools have served a solely academic purpose. However, new disruptions and workplace models have significantly shifted the roles and expectations of schools, where factors such as skill development and wellness have become increasingly relevant. At the moment, our national indicators of school success still revolve around academic performance, which pose significant challenges for the schools who have implemented new initiatives to track their impact. Furthermore, the way we measure school success often dictates the resources schools receive, and how schools are able use them. When school success is measured solely on academic performance, the pressure trickles down through the schools and onto the students. These pressures build up day by day into near-impossible expectations, and are detrimental to mental health in this critical developmental phase. The lack of mental health awareness further exacerbates the mental health epidemic.
Quality of Life should be a national school success metric, but it isn’t. The fact is that wellness is a critical metric in both the workforce and a country’s overall success, and school systems should start adopting these metrics.
In sending you this letter, I am asking you to become a leader in prioritizing the quality of student life. I also urge you to consider becoming a pilot school for the QSLI—to participate in the validation studies and administer the QSLI at our school. Please feel free to learn more here.
Sincerely,