Warriors are finally settled into the school year with new changes added, including more construction and small adaptations to the Advisory period. We believe that the Advisory changes have not been benefiting students as much as administrators want them to. Advisory was designed to be a period for students to reach out to teachers if they need help, catch up on assignments, and meet with their clubs, but it has turned into a free period for many.
We as a staff believe that clubs do not get enough time together. From what we were told last year when this period was introduced, clubs were supposed to be able to meet every other Friday during Advisory. It was supposed to benefit students who are unable to attend club meetings right after school, since many are unable to attend due to reasons out of their control, like not having a ride to and back from school. However, this doesn’t always seem to be the case.
Another way Advisory has changed is through academic support. Students are able to receive academic support in the cafeteria on certain days, except that there are only COREclass teachers present for students to receive help, thus making it limited. What happens to the student who needs academic support or has questions about work from a class in the Walker Career Center? It is not a guarantee that a teacher will read and respond to their emails when a student attempts to contact them outside of class. Due to the block schedule, students have to wait an extra day or two to guarantee a face-to-face answer to the question in class.
The updated Advisory academic support set-up has provided structure and has helped many students in their CORE classes, but it is difficult to receive help outside of class for their other classes, like computer science, fashion and business. We think that, despite the help that students have received in the cafeteria during Advisory this year, last year's Advisory was a better benefit to many.
Last year, students were able to go to teachers' classrooms during the Advisory period with a pink pass on certain days to get the academic support they needed directly from their teachers.
However, there were students who decided to do otherwise and roam around the hallways or be in a class they were not supposed to be in. This caused Advisory to be more strict with how students exit the classroom.
We, as a staff, believe that although there were students who decided to make bad decisions with how last year's Advisory worked, it benefited students who actually used it for academic support. More clubs were also able to use Advisory as a time for club meetings instead of meetings being after school. This allowed students to have a flexible schedule with clubs, meaning it wasn't complicated for students to go to club meetings, as it is this year.
It’s hard to find a perfect balance, but administrators need to find a way to make Advisory more useful than it is now. It’s frustrating that the students who want to use Advisory correctly are not getting the benefits they need from it because of those who don’t want to use it correctly. There should be improvements made for Advisory to benefit every student. Students should be able to go to non-CORE classes, with expectations as well as restrictions in place, so students do not misuse it.