SOAR can be the best or worst period in the school day. On SOAR Support days, we can choose our own adventure and take some time to step away from the stress of the school day. But on Advisory days, we have to sit through tutorials and videos that take up time that we could be using to focus on our own academic needs.

During my time in junior high, I became frustrated by the constant hand-holding and strict requirements. I arrived at NCHS excited to experience more freedom and to be more self-directed, so you can imagine my surprise when I walked into Advisory during the first month of school and had to sit through “How to…” videos about using the bathroom.

Advisory is advertised as being “student-driven”, yet I feel as though I have less control over my academic planning than I did in sixth grade. With everything mapped out for us, all we have to do is fill in the blanks on our individualized trackers and occasionally conference with our Advisory teachers. These teachers are often staff who we only see for 45 minutes a week, so the student-staff partnership that the Advisory program is built upon feels more like filling out a form than having a productive conversation.

Advisory can certainly be useful for a lot of people, especially for those who struggle with managing their daily tasks. Depending on your teacher and your grade, Advisory can either be self-directed and student-managed, or it can be staring at a screen until your teacher thinks it’s time to move on. Advisory is meant to enhance student engagement, but sitting there and waiting to move on makes me feel less engaged than I am in any of my other classes.

If the school truly wants to focus on self-directed learning, then SOAR Support is our best bet. Being in control of our own schedule allows us to pinpoint where our time is best spent, which will better prepare us to go out into the real world beyond high school, where we won’t be attending weekly classes on how to keep track of our work. There are some who find Advisory helpful in order to succeed and identify places of academic struggle, but for others, that time could be better spent getting help from a teacher, or just going to a quiet study hall. 

The purpose of SOAR is the Success of All Redhawks, but not everyone achieves success the same way. We should be able to individually decide whether Advisory or Support is the best use of our time in order to create a truly student-led experience.