Many students have made it clear that they don’t like advisory, and Julius West has done work to change it over the years, but students are still upset. In the 2021-2022 school year, advisory was called JAG and was a part of first period. Your first-period teacher would teach a lesson or do a community circle, and then teach the regular subject. First period was a longer class since JAG was included in that time, but in the 2022-2023 school year, that all changed.
Last year, there was no more JAG, and instead, came advisory. Advisory was a separate
class, and it occurred right before lunch. Students learned about similar topics as the previous year, even though the name was changed. At the beginning of the year, advisory lasted for about fifteen minutes, but there was no transition time into lunch, so students complained. The school later shortened advisory to around ten minutes to ensure students could enjoy their full thirty minutes of lunch, but in these ten minutes, students felt they were learning nothing, and some teachers didn’t even teach the advisory lesson. Instead, some teachers allowed students to play games on their Chromebooks or work on homework for any class.
This year, Julius West has kept advisory as a separate class, but it is now at the beginning of the day again. Advisory is considered period one, and your first official class is considered period two now, keeping the eight-class schedule from last school year. Students still learn about current events, MYP values, and more in advisory this year. In my class, we must close our Chromebooks during this time, but in other classes, students just game and don’t pay attention. I wish advisory was later in the day, and we were given time to complete homework and work on missing assignments, after doing the advisory lesson, which is why I would propose this new schedule.
All students would go through their regular seven classes plus lunch and then would go
back to their first period at the end of the day for a period 8 advisory. This schedule would solve many problems and would allow students to work on homework (after the lesson is completed) they just received, while it is fresh in their minds. If this were to happen, every student would have a convenient locker because it would be close to their first, and last class. This would be helpful for students who take a bus that gets to school late, and for students who have to drop off an instrument in the morning, and pick it up in the afternoon. Also, with the new Chromebook system this year, it would make it extremely easy to pick it up in their first class and leave it when they leave school in the afternoon. This would also save people time in the morning, helping eliminate tardies because of little time to get everything done and get to their first period, which for many students is far from their eighth period where they must get their Chromebook.
What do you think about this schedule? Would you want the JW to adapt this schedule
next school year? Let us know in the comments.