Advisory: Challenges and Next Steps

East Palo Alto Academy (EPAA) is a small public charter high school in the Sequoia Union School District with an advisory class that all students take three times a week. For my POLS field project I interviewed advisory educators, observed advisory classes, and completed a literature review to inform improvements to EPAA’s advisory program. Throughout my research the value of positive student-teacher relationships was widely emphasized as a key indicator of school environment, student success, as well as teacher buy-in. With my findings I developed a set of professional development activities to align staff-wide support networks for advisory with the ultimate goal that improved cohesion at the staff level would open new avenues to form positive teacher-student relationships.