District plans for five more advisories after putting them on hold in January

After a turbulent start to in-person advisories last semester — including a pause due to teacher objections and website failures — the district has delayed rolling them out in January. Now, it is planning for five more advisories in the second semester.

Dr. Jamal Splane, the director of School Climate and Culture/Curriculum and Instruction for the district, is in charge of planning advisories. Splane said he recognizes “this may not be the right time to launch new initiatives,” as the school is focused on curbing the omicron variant.

“We’re already asking students, teachers, parents and administrators to carry a huge load in this pandemic education world, so we don’t want to add to the weight that they’re carrying,” Splane said.

In collaboration with the Advisory Lead Teacher Planning Work Group, Splane is devising the advisory topics while also trying to minimize conflicts with testing schedules and students’ needs for tutorials. He is also hoping to avoid another site crashing, the way Kognito did during the fall semester when the hundreds of users from both schools overwhelmed the system.

As a result, Splane is waiting for more information about potentially conflicting events, and reaching out to the tech department and contracted companies to ensure future sites function properly.

“We value [advisory] knowing that our community values not only academic success but some of the social emotional skills that have to do with lifelong success,” he said.

The work group plans for the frequency of advisories in second semester are similar to the fall’s: either once or twice a month or every other Wednesday.

Despite uncertainties with the schedule, the five topics have been finalized: healthy communication with uncomfortable topics, identity, bias, microaggressions and how to create a community of belonging.

In future years, Splane hopes to tailor lessons separately for Saratoga High and Los Gatos High in order to best address the issues prevalent in the two schools’ “uniquely different” communities. He also hopes to make the lessons grade-specific and teacher-specific so that students are being engaged in topics relevant to their age, and teachers are being matched with topics they are passionate about.

One of the Advisory Leadership group’s immediate goals is to address students’ dislike about advisories, starting with inviting student voices to the work group, which initially consisted only of adults in its first meeting on Jan. 18. Splane is still figuring out how he will advertise the student position, and what the position would entail.

A student eager to pitch in her opinions is sophomore Simarya Ahuja, who shares many students’ grievances that advisory periods take up much-needed tutorials and aren’t very effective.

She proposed a solution similar to the advisory format during the 2020-2021 school year, saying: “I remember when we were in online learning, we had a 30-minute advisory period on Wednesdays. Maybe we could have something dedicated to advisories on Wednesdays early in the mornings, and then go straight into classes.” 

Ahuja also hopes that future advisories are modified to appeal to students, such as having shorter lessons to accommodate teenagers’ short attention spans, she said. Additionally, she hopes there won’t be repetition of old information, a problem she has seen in some redundant modules.

After experiencing teacher-led advisories, professional presentations — such as an out-of-state expert Zooming in for the Title IX presentation — and automated websites, Ahuja said she prefers teachers leading the advisory modules because they better understand the student body and individual students’ struggles.

“When I was doing [the Title IX] module, one of my friends had to walk out of the room because he had an experience that was really personal, and the stuff being covered was triggering for him,” she said. “I know there was nothing the [speaker] could do about it, but if our teacher was the one giving the module, he probably would have issued trigger warnings in advance because he would probably be aware of the situation.”

Even so, Ahuja has found some modules helpful, especially the first one of last semester in which students discussed how to approach a sensitive topic or situation. She said the module taught her how to find a balance between feeling comfortable and understanding other perspectives.

Science teacher Kelly Nicholson thinks the topics taught in advisories are valuable and necessary, but said she believes that this year is not a good time to implement that.

“I think the general feeling [among teachers] is we understand that those lessons are important, but we really want to have time to check in with the kids, especially after last year [online],” she said. “It was nice that the [administration] stepped back and said, ‘We hear you, and we’re going to adjust our schedule.’”