With the new hybrid and online school models, many aspects of our school days have been changed to accommodate COVID-19 protocols, including advisory. Students meet with their advisories two days a week for around twenty minutes after senior speeches. This time is allotted for students to check in with their advisees and relax in between classes. Evie Doran ‘23
says, “I think advisory is one of the lone times for people to socialize and not be in class or in lunch with one another.” Before the completely online school model, students were required to join advisory via zoom even on their at-home days. For some students this was beneficial to maintain community within their prospective advisories, especially for fully remote students, but others felt differently. Doran says, “I think joining advisory on at-home days is worth it because we get to check in and talk about the speeches and just kind of say hi to let everyone know we’re all doing okay.” However Annabelle Swigert ‘22 says,“When our advisory zooms in we don’t really stay on the call,” she adds, “I would log in after I get out of bed just to say hi and then we would
all log off right after.” Although previously most advisories were split up amongst color groups, many people have still found advisory to bring a sense of community. Swigert says, “I do think it’s nice to have a solid group of people you see every day, it makes it a little more comfortable and it builds a sense of community for sure.” In October, SIAC planned an advisory activity to compete in a pumpkin carving contest. Without tools, advisories got extremely creative, an example of this ingenuity is pictured above. Many students really enjoyed this activity and recommend that the school should continue planning activities and competitions to do during advisory time when we return back to school. Advisory seems to be the highlight of students’ weeks. Swigert says, “Obviously we miss having everyone be together, but we are able to get to know other members of our advisory better…It’s fun to make better friendships with people individually.”