Last year, Jackson-Reed introduced a mandatory freshman advisory class with the goal of providing freshmen additional time and guidance to adjust to high school. According to Principal Sah Brown, the advisory classes played a major role in the class of 2027’s successful promotion rate of 95% from freshman to sophomore year.
To plan the advisory class, the selected teachers are given a basic curriculum, while also having the flexibility to incorporate their own content based on their goals for the class. “We support our teachers with supplementing material that they feel like is something that resonates with the class or the topic they want to cover,” said Brown.
For math teacher Nicole Bellerice, advisory class works to advance students’ social and developmental needs. Students in her class start with a mini lesson, then they complete a graded check-in, where they can talk to Bellerice about missing assignments or their grades. The rest of class is used for completing individual work, with the encouragement to help others. “If you don’t have anything to do, I like [it] if you’re helping someone else,” Bellerice explained.
“We have time for everything, work and socializing with our friends, it’s perfect for the last period because you get work done and get more free time at home,” said freshman Curial Sala Espachs. Freshman Caiden Dohawk shared that “since Ms. Bellerice is also a math teacher, she helps with my math homework. She’ll break down anything that’s difficult.”
Araceli Lobato Darias, ESOL teacher who leads two advisory classes, focuses on enhancing students’ responsibility and ownership of their own learning. To do this, she has weekly check-ins where she goes over their grades and asks the freshmen “what can you do to make it up?” and “do you want me to help you write an email to your teacher?” So far this year, Lobato’s classes have been exploring study habits, professionalism, and money management, after students filled out a survey on their interests.
Freshman Reese Erdman said, “While we still have to do the required work, [Lobato] also lets us have time to do our [other] work and usually makes the lessons we do have engaging.”
As the year goes on, Lobato will continue to improve the class, finding methods that work best for herself and her students. “I’m constantly thinking about how to teach it.”
The differences in the advisory classes have raised conflicted feelings between freshmen. Some want more freedom in how they spend their time, while others believe that stricter course plans would improve the class. Freshman Madasyn Harris said the class is “a waste of time. I feel like advisory should [only] be about you doing work from other classes, so basically like a study hall.” Other freshmen like Julian Durbin feel that “a consistent curriculum would make the class better” and the lack of structure makes it a “hard class for both the teacher and students.”
The material also widely varies between every class. Freshman Nora Freed shared, “[my advisory teacher’s one of] the JROTC teachers and he gives us the work he gives to his cadets. We had to do a CER that he gave to the cyber security kids.”
Despite their diverse approaches to the class, advisory teachers share something in common: “teachers who are great at connecting with students [and] building relationships tend to excel. So, I think all of our advisory teachers can do extremely well in that class and are doing well in that class,” said Brown.
