With the 2024-25 school year kicking off on Monday, the countdown has begun until advisory starts on August 26. However, this year, there will be no advisory period on Fridays.
“[Administration] felt like it was more frustrating for the kids not knowing when they were going to have things like student lessons and pep rallies,” Principal Stacey Whaling said. “Just making sure everything is on Friday means [we] don’t have to continually [have] pep rallies and advisories throughout the week. That way everybody knows those things are going to always be on Fridays, so when they’re closed we can get all of that stuff knocked out.”
American Studies teacher Whitney Schell believes that the scheduled advisories could have additional positive impacts on classes.
“One thing that I think the Friday advisories will lend themselves to is allowing students to think of their second period as a homeroom, which allows the [pep rallies and lessons] to easily slot in and lessen confusion,” Schell said. “Everybody likes their open advisory, so this is going to take some getting used to, but I also think it will help with everybody in second period getting to know each other and it will give them some downtime.”
However, not everybody is onboard with the new advisory schedule, including sophomore Alan Christopher Rajkumar.
“In my opinion, this change would be detrimental to student learning,” Rajkumar said. “Students who need help in a subject [might not be] able to schedule a lesson, so [they] will have to wait [and] potentially lose an opportunity to review before an exam.”