In an email sent to staff Nov. 30, Principal Kenny DeMoss discussed his plans for the next school year. He claimed that the advisory period is not being used properly and if students do not start behaving during advisory, he will make it a full 45-minute period next year.
“It’s important for students to understand that this is the expectation,” DeMoss said. “Just like a job, you know, you gotta come to work, you gotta do this, you gotta do that.”
According to his proposed plan, the school day would not be over at 3:10 anymore. It was the schedule a few years ago, but the school should not go back to it. Some things are better left in the past. While the change is only a few minutes, this would still disrupt the personal schedule of many.
Some students, myself included, have after-school activities that will not change their times just because of one school. For example, my ballet class is full of students from all ages and grades. It would not be fair to the others to change the time class starts just because of me. Any amount of time change would mess me up, and I know others would have the same problems.
“This would negatively impact my extracurricular activities and would cause my grades to go down due to more amounts of stress,” sophomore Dominique White said.
As the principal, DeMoss has the freedom to do whatever he likes to the schedule. He’s trying his best with what has been given to him. However, I disagree that this is the right way to go about it.
“I have to make sure there’s engagement,” said DeMoss. “The proper way of the advisory part of it is so that, you know, they can get some stuff done.”
I think advisory’s daily schedule is what needs to be changed. It should be more of a study hall every day and not a class that has something specific to do each day. Instead of forcing kids to do Aleks on Monday or SSR on Tuesday, they should be able to pick what they want to do, as long as it’s productive. Phone and talking policies should be up to the individual advisory teacher.
Another solution to get students to do what they’re supposed to do is by rewarding them. In middle school and elementary school, the schools I went to had days reserved for rewarding the students, typically at the end of each nine weeks. If you had a lot of missing work, bad grades, or bad behavior, you couldn’t go and had to work all day.
While this may seem childish, I believe that it would work better to motivate students more than punishing them every day would. Plus, in this case, the students who do what they are supposed to would not be punished. The reward days would give some teachers time to grade or just simply relax, which can be very helpful towards the end of the nine weeks.
One defense for this change is that test scores are down. Some people argue that Aleks will help with this by teaching math at different levels. I agree that something needs to be done about low scores, but Aleks will not help students learn necessary math skills.
“It doesn’t mean I necessarily like the program, but it’s what we’re required to do,” DeMoss said. “So like anything else, if you’re required to do it, you gotta promote it and make sure everybody is following through with that.”
Since we cannot completely get rid of Aleks, the school’s math teachers should lessen the amount of Aleks lessons that are required. It absolutely does not help me or anyone else I know learn math. Aleks users get a short lesson, answer two or three questions correctly and then it’s on to the next unrelated topic. I cannot remember anything I’ve ever learned from Aleks. It’s just a nuisance that takes away time during advisory that I could be using to do work or study.
While this change is not for sure going to happen, I encourage everyone to discuss their opinion amongst each other. Students need to do what they’re supposed to do in advisory and teachers need to make sure that students are following the rules. If the change ever becomes a certainty, anyone with a strong opinion should make it known (politely) to DeMoss if they disagree or agree with it.
