Senior Advisory

Someone once told me that the further they “moved up” in an organization, the farther away they moved from what attracted them to their profession in the first place. Education is certainly one of those professions where this axiom is apt. I am envious of the types – and depth – of the relationships I witness on a daily basis between students and teachers. The position of principal provides access to all kids in a variety of situations but few of those connections approach the ones made in the classroom. I think because principals don’t have the same types of relationships with kids as they did when they were teaching, it can be easy to lose sight of kids’ perspectives on a range of schoolwide issues. I’ve come to cherish my time in advisory, where twice a week for 28 minutes I do spend time with a dozen students throughout the year. When I first came to SKHS six years ago, I was assigned a group of freshmen, and remained with them in advisory for their four years of SKHS. They all took different paths: most went to college right away, enrolling at institutions ranging from MIT to Massachusetts Maritime Academy. One took five years to earn her diploma, another I see in town working as she goes to community college. Last year after my initial advisory had graduated, seizing on an idea which current Johnston principal, Gerry Foley, had instituted when he was at North Kingstown High School, I recruited 12 seniors who were for various reasons considered at-risk of not graduating. Their attitudes about school were at best ambivalent and at worst hostile. I knew some of these kids from their first three (or four) years at SKHS but I didn’t know any of them well. We spent our first quarter mostly hanging out and establishing a baseline of trust, occasionally focusing on the graduation portfolio which they all were not close to completing. Along the way, three dropped out, promising to get their GEDs (all three kept their promise, two receiving them in a ceremony last week and another successfully pursuing an alternate route to a diploma before pursuing work in Europe). The seven of the remaining nine, after a lot of cajoling, completed all of their requirements and walked across the stage last June. The remaining two are close and we expect they’ll complete their remaining requirements in the next month. I’d be lying if there were times when I said I would never take another group of recalcitrant seniors but the moments at graduation and on the phone with the kids who got their GEDs made it all worthwhile. It reminded me of what attracted me to the education profession in the first place. So over the next few days, I’ll be talking to a few select seniors, offering them the “chance” to have advisory with the principal. Most will look at me uncomfortably and reluctantly agree. Along the way we’ll have some laughs, battles and frustrating moments but we’ll also begin to forge that relationship which will culminate in a shared goal: graduation from SKHS.