Towson High school has introduced yet another change to our “advisory” period. For the past three years they have been altered every year. The 2021-2022 school year, students moved to a designated “advisory” class for 25 minutes after first period. The 2022-2023 school year, advisory was built into 1st period, bells were rung marking the end of 1st and start of advisory. This 2023-2024 school year, Towson High school is infusing advisory with 1st period. To my knowledge, this means teachers may do the advisory lesson whenever they see fit and 1st period is basically extended. No bells are rung anymore, so it makes it feel like 1st period is extra long.

Many students aren’t taking a liking to this advisory switch. The lessons in themselves are good ideas for many students who could use the social-emotional health wellness learning especially in a time like high school. Despite the good ideas behind advisory, students are finding that their teachers aren’t fully giving respect to the extra time allotted for it. Especially in those AP or advanced classes where the work always continues outside of class, teachers and students both prioritize the classwork over advisory.

“I liked advisory because last year we got to switch and spend time doing homework I hadn’t done for my classes for the rest of the day”, says one student, grade 11. Last year I found students either checked out during advisory and used the time to go on their phones or talk with friends, or they would be doing homework. 

While ideally, advisory shouldn’t be used for homework, sometimes it’s very helpful to have that last minute cram session or to be able to get things done before the rest of the day. Some days, teachers don’t even play the announcements in classes. I’ve also had classes where we miss the important advisory announcements because we continue class time.

The loss of the bell also is difficult because it doesn’t notify teachers when they’ve already used all of class time, so I can imagine the transition from 1st period that had 20 extra minutes to 2nd period would be significantly shorter and they may not be able to keep up with 1st periods progress. 

Maybe this is the final revision to our advisory time, or maybe it’s not. Especially with a new principal, things at Towson are always changing. With feedback from students and teachers, advisory could easily change for the next school year. We’ll just have to wait and see!