In 2007, Philadelphia Magazine named Lower Merion School District the top overall district. Remarkably, LMSD students spent less time in school than did most other public school students across the commonwealth while achieving this feat.
Art by Zach Ostrum/Staff
Apparently our state government resisted this efficiency, so it instructed the LMSD to add ten minutes to the school day in all Elementary, Middle, and High schools. Born from this edict was the daily advisory period—theoretically a very good thing.
The problem is that the “daily advisory period” does not actually occur every school day. In the month of April, advisory was cancelled more times than it wasn’t. In May, it was cancelled more than seven times.
It seems to me that the administration dislikes the advisory period. They have put it on hiatus multiple times, perhaps due to frustration- which I can understand -when they see students hanging out in hallways, or leaving the premises altogether.
Still, isn’t the administration at least partly to blame for student indifference? Advisory is not likely to be respected by students if the administration does not take it seriously. It is evident in the excessive cancellations that the administration does not currently take advisory seriously.
Not only does the administration need to reconsider its criteria for cancelling advisory, but it also needs to revisit the necessity of the “A” Day “Connections” Advisory. The infamous “A” day is a waste of time when there is nothing specific for advisors to discuss with their students. There is no reason to keep students cooped up in their advisor’s classroom when there are more constructive things that they could be doing. When the administration feels there is an important issue to be discussed with full homerooms, it can order all students to their advisories for that particular “A” day.
Admittedly, some students have not held up their end of the bargain; some students neglected, for instance, to sign up online last year, and rarely showed up to advisory at all this year. Because of these students, the administration has frequently threatened to get rid of advisory all together.
For the sake of problem solving, it seems useful to divide these delinquent students into two main groups. The first group would be made up of those who don’t want to be in school, and generally disrespect the educational process in every way possible; advisory is not the only period they skip. The second group, made up of students who do attend regular classes; they just don’t see the point of advisory. As far as I am concerned, the first group is a lost cause. The second group, however, has potential.
Perhaps if the administration decided to take advisory as seriously as they take other periods of the day, some of these problems could be solved. For starters, they could reinstitute the online sign-up system with the option of a default sign-up. And if the system they use doesn’t support that, they can find a new system! Once that step is completed and the archaic passes are eliminated, they can reconsider the criterion they use to determine when advisory will be cancelled or not. After that, and once the student body has seen that their administration is giving the advisory period the respect that it deserves, they can start seriously cracking down on those who do not cooperate. However, I sincerely believe that there will be very few delinquents once these reforms are implemented.
