At Silver Creek they do one lesson on social/emotional wellness, one lesson on academics (often just time to work on homework), and one lesson on inclusivity per week.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do all MS have this advisory class 3 times per week? Is it useful at all?

Ours is once a week. The other 2 times are a study hall where teachers alternate the duty of pulling kids for retracting and make up work. The other 2 days are free time for the whole school supervised by paras, security guards and secretaries.

Wish I worked at your MS. Ours is advisory every single day and they have planned "lessons", so we basically are being conned into teaching 6 classes instead of 5. Meanwhile, some teachers don't have advisories.

What are the lessons? Are they as leftist and political (gender ideology and anti-racism) as they were in our middle school or is it mostly normal stuff?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do all MS have this advisory class 3 times per week? Is it useful at all?

Ours is once a week. The other 2 times are a study hall where teachers alternate the duty of pulling kids for retracting and make up work. The other 2 days are free time for the whole school supervised by paras, security guards and secretaries.

Wish I worked at your MS. Ours is advisory every single day and they have planned "lessons", so we basically are being conned into teaching 6 classes instead of 5. Meanwhile, some teachers don't have advisories.

Anonymous wrote:Do all MS have this advisory class 3 times per week? Is it useful at all?

Ours is once a week. The other 2 times are a study hall where teachers alternate the duty of pulling kids for retracting and make up work. The other 2 days are free time for the whole school supervised by paras, security guards and secretaries.

Honestly, I'm impressed that a middle school used the useless advisory period to have kids read a book. An actual book.

A couple sessions through out the year make sense. 3 day a week sessions focused exclusively on 1-2 groups without including all the different groups that can be impacted by race, hate, etc. is not.

My kid went to an ES that emphasized SEL, and I have to say, it really did do a world of good. There was far less bullying in that school than I experienced myself in ES.

But I also agree that SEL in MS is a waste of time. By that age, most kids know whether they want to be nice or not, and it's too late to change their attitudes.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do all MS have this advisory class 3 times per week? Is it useful at all?

We had it the past few years and it was terrible as PP said. Kids got in trouble for not speaking up, sometimes marked absent and many were scared to speak up as the teacher was clear there was only one right opinion that was hers. It was mostly one agenda and diversity wasn't encouraged.

My kid is now in HS, but our MS does Advisory every day. So, 5 times per week.

One year, my kid had a fantastic teacher who let them go outside for a while. Or, the kids could help each other with homework. Or let them bring in something like UNO to play. So it was actually some quality downtime.

The other two years, they had actual SEL lessons dealing with supporting LGBQT students, talking about pronouns, talking about BLM.

Like the other PP says, I think the lessons actually end up backfiring - kids learn about inappropriate racial or homophobic slurs and then continue to use them excitedly for a few weeks.

Anonymous wrote:Do all MS have this advisory class 3 times per week? Is it useful at all?

We had it the past few years and it was terrible as PP said. Kids got in trouble for not speaking up, sometimes marked absent and many were scared to speak up as the teacher was clear there was only one right opinion that was hers. It was mostly one agenda and diversity wasn't encouraged.

Do all MS have this advisory class 3 times per week? Is it useful at all?

Anonymous wrote:Silver Creek is not preparing the kids for high school, especially at BCC. Handing them the kids a math packet every week is no way to teach math.

Can you say more? Kid just started at SCMS. What would you like to see done differently? What is expected at BCC?

Anonymous wrote:How does it mess up the schedule?

DP but it makes the academic classes shorter.

Anonymous wrote:Our has it 3x per week. I think in theory they are supposed to teach organizational and study skills, along with SEL—but in practice it is just a waste of time, and takes away from the substantive classes, which are all shorter on days there is PAWS.

My school alternates between Advisory and Free time, so the timing of other classes doesn't change.

From what I hear, the substantive classes don't teaching anyway.

How does it mess up the schedule?

Silver Creek is not preparing the kids for high school, especially at BCC. Handing them the kids a math packet every week is no way to teach math.