Students diminishing focus, teachers trying to work through lessons, and a relaxation period. Just another study hall in disguise. 

Systems of support advisor Deonte Young, head of Advisory, explained that “recently there’s been a big push through the county to implement social and emotional learning.” The reason for the push was because of the ways the pandemic has challenged students mentally and socially. “Social and emotional learning is kind of a big thing right now.” 

Teachers try to go through social and emotional lessons with students during Advisory, but students lack interest in the Advisory lessons. “I think sometimes the lessons are effective when they’re short,” said Paige Bailey (12), “but if it’s like a long lesson, kids don’t really pay attention.” 

After a short lesson on social and emotional learning, some students await the transition to their intervention session. Intervention is designed to support students academically, while students are allowed to sign up in advance to receive support in a class, others get to take a break for about one hour. 

“I feel left out,” said Mirza Hernandez Huox (9). With lack of teacher training for Advisory presentations, ESOL students get left behind with social and emotional learning even with some resources being in a Spanish translation. Students like Mirza from the ESOL department wish that teachers would better focus on students who need more support. “It’s hard for me to connect with the lessons when it’s all in English,” said Mirza. ESOL students are not recieving adequate levels of support for the Advisory lessons, leaving them to not gain anything from it. “Advisory could improve by having students get more involved with activities,” said Luis Rivera (9)

Mr. Young encourages Advisory teachers to adapt their lessons for their students; “they know their students best,” he said. One way Mr. Young tries to improve the engagement in Advisory is by visiting different classrooms and providing feedback to teachers to better engage with their students. 

History and Social Studies teacher Timothy Winter tries to adapt to the student environment in his classroom. Mr. Winter has seven, level one ESOL students. Since he skips a few slides that are too complicated for ESOL students to understand, he posts the lessons on Schoology to let students go through them at their own pace. He feels that if the lessons are too complicated and the ESOL students don’t get to participate, it isn’t always fair to them. “I don’t feel good when other students get to participate in the lessons,” said Mirza, “and I can’t.”