Students are expressing concerns about how advisory bell is a waste of time and a waste of potential.

At the beginning of the 2019-2020 school year, the administration announced that an extra thirty-minute period would be added into the schedule every other Friday. The intent was to give students a consistent group of their peers to turn to throughout their high school career, but students like freshman Sophia Canino feel advisory misses the mark. 

“I get what they’re trying to do. But I guess certain things, I think, are a little time-wasting.” Canino says. “It’s a different name for all the things we’ve been doing. Homebase, roundtable, whatever.”

The administration has their own vision for the advisory bell.

“It’s about trying to find a way that you can connect to teachers, you can connect to your classmates. You can do more fun activities,” Leist says. “You can just have fun. There’s no grade, there’s nothing to it.”

Despite complaints, in a Knight Times survey of 350 students, 61% say they would rather the administration make improvements to advisory over abandoning it.

“If they listen to the students I feel like that could make an impact.” Canino went on to say. “At least a majority, if not everyone, just isn’t into it and don’t really care. I guess if they could find a way to make it feel worth it.”

The students want their voices to be heard, and the administration is open to listening.

“I love student voice,” Leist says. “If there’s ever ideas like, hey, we’d like to do this in advisory or hey this is an idea we’d like to kind of do when we have this opportunity, please let me know or let one of our counselors know and we’ll do that.”

A committee of teachers are also discussing ways for the students and staff to make better use of the advisory bell.  

Recently, Miss Bare visited Milford High School, who is testing out what they call “Eagle Time.” 

“Students go to a ‘teacher’s nest,’ where they are able to do an activity with that teacher that they signed up for,” Bare says. “Students get free range to go to any advisory they want, leaving them plentiful of options.”

Milford offers karaoke, yoga, study hall and other activities to give students a break. Miss Bare and the committee hope to bring this freedom to Kings. 

“The goal is to implement student choice into the advisory,” Bare says. “These innovative schedules could be a great addition to our culture here at Kings, giving students and staff the ability to create spaces to relate to each other and meet the needs of social and emotional wellness.”