As some students push chairs and couches together to make a circle, one student grabs the stuffed animal for a talking stick. Everybody takes a turn sharing their answers to the assigned questions with even the quietest students taking their turns.
At the start of this year, an advisory was introduced to students on Tuesdays during 5th period. On advisory days, there is no Flex Hour. Instead, there are four lunch shifts with 30 extra minutes of advisory built into 5th period.
The weekly Community Building lesson – more often called “circle time” – has become a staple on Tuesdays in 5th period for students. For some it’s the most uncomfortable 30 minutes of the week, while others embrace the time to listen and share.
“A lot of the kids who are really quiet and reserved, that’s a time for them to have their voice heard and what I like is some of the other kids who may not always take it seriously have come to take it more seriously and listen to other kids,” biology teacher Kristen Lynam said.
The reactions of students have been mixed. Many miss Flex Hour and the freedom to be with friends, attend tutorials or make up tests.
“As a senior I don’t see really having a gain from it because we’ve been here for three years already,” senior JD McComb said. “So having it introduced to us as seniors, I feel like there is really no point in doing it as we are about to leave. But I can see it’s (good) for freshman and sophomore classes because they’re younger and haven’t matured yet.”
Others have seen the value of advisory.
“You’ve gotta stick down that road of helping each other, helping yourself, making sure you’re doing fine, making sure others are doing fine,” junior Lucas Pagano said. “That’s pretty much the goal of circle time — to improve the mental stability of the school.”
In the past couple years, counseling lessons were rolled out during class time, either by the teacher or by a counselor.
A similar variation of this was implemented when the school originally opened and was called Den. More recently, freshmen participated in P.I.T. (Panthers in Training) instead of Flex Hour. P.I.T. lasted anywhere from six to 18 weeks. Freshmen spent time in an assigned room all of Flex A. That ended in the fall of 2022.
Now, the new school-wide advisory is used both for the academic lessons and more emotional lessons, without taking away teaching time.
“We were trying to meet the needs of the academic concerns and the social-emotional concerns of kiddos in more of a broad scale setting,” counselor Jenny Van Horn said.
Each week in advisory the lessons are provided to the teachers from the counselors. These lessons are designed to help build a community with each class and with the school.
Some are also used for academic reasons. For example, an early lesson was on how and why to pass-fail classes.
“We wanted them to feel comfortable and safe and connected to everyone on the campus and have that sense of belongingness and kind of feel like they’re at home, like with their family,” Van Horn said.
