What's up with the new advisory schedule?

With the recent change in schedule regarding advisory, many students have been left to contemplate the meaningfulness of advisory. With 67% of students believing that Galileo’s student body has not benefited from advisory, it is important to hear both sides of the story and figure out what purpose advisory serves and how it can be improved.

As advisory exists currently, with the updated schedule, it offers students one day a month for being academically advised, along with one day a month for an enrichment activity. Some students enjoyed this change in schedule, such as freshman Amileia Chapman who “enjoyed the updated schedule because now [they] have much more class time.” Other students were not as fond of the change, such as senior Antony Useche who stated “one hour of advisory is useless.”

One thing that most students do agree on, however, is enrichment, which allows students to take a mini-class with a teacher. These activities give students the opportunity to try new things, such as writing poetry, assorted art projects, and learning about history. Students have also pointed out that our enrichment time has been shortened, such as junior Anna Timm who voiced “It's a little sad that we only get one enrichment a month now.”

One of the many staff members who assist in executing advisory is Mrs. Vater, who was originally tasked with helping to create lesson plans and organizing the enrichment activities. When asked about how she felt regarding students attacking advisory she responded by reminding students to keep in mind that “there is somebody on the other end of this who is putting a lot of effort into it and just because it might not be executed properly doesn’t mean that there wasn’t a lot of work that went into it.”

As with all things, advisory isn’t perfect. Seeing as it was only just implemented this school year, and has already had multiple changes made to it so far, it can safely be said that advisory will more than likely continue to be adjusted according to student input. For now, it’s best to focus on the positive features of advisory, while still giving constructive feedback on the less well-implemented aspects in order to continue facilitating growth.