Going from middle to high school is a tough experience for any regular fourteen-year-old, but for an anxiety-ridden teen, going to a new school can be a disaster. Most kids attending Cass Middle School moved to Cass High School with their friends. However, I went from Cass Middle School to Woodland High School. I begged my mother to let me go to Cass High with all the friends I had grown up with. She refused, and thus began the worst year of my life. After going to a school without friends for just one semester, I would do anything to leave. Desperate and naïve, online school seemed like the holy grail. After weeks of convincing, my mother could see how much I didn’t want to be at Woodland anymore. After the holiday season, I began online school. My mom put a desk downstairs where I could spend my school days. I was finally happy again. For the first few weeks, I thought I had made the right decision. I didn’t have to ask to go to the bathroom, I could eat whenever I pleased, and I could do as much or as little work as I wanted. As a person with a good work ethic, I always finished my work early. This led to me laying in my bed all day watching Friends reruns. Slowly, I began spending my days doing anything but being productive. As best said by Will Estad, “The structured schedule of attending class a handful of times per week and having routine face-to-face interactions with instructors can help keep students on task.” The problem with online school is the isolation. I never spoke to anyone outside of my family and slowly began losing close relationships with friends. My grades dropped due to the laziness growing in me. This went on for three semesters (one and a half school years). Finally, junior year, I enrolled at Cass High. My mother saw how much online school affected my grades and overall mental health. It has been a month and a half since I made the best decision in my life. I am happier than I have ever been. I get to see my friends every day and my grades are all one hundred or higher. Overall, online school is hard on a teenager’s mental health, more so than public school.