In past years, clubs used Learn for meetings, but with the new 4th period schedule, some club leaders say organizing gatherings is much more difficult.
Social Studies teacher Patricia Coppolino, sponsor of both Mock Trial Club and Women in Politics, said she’ll likely have to move meetings to after school, which could be problematic.
“I know that students have work after school, I know that they have sports practices after school, that there are rehearsals after school,” Coppolino said. “I’m just hoping that it doesn’t really put a dent into the people who can participate.”
Student club leaders are also struggling to schedule meetings. President of Grey’s Academy club Emily Paz said she worries her own extracurriculars will get in the way of meetings.
“The only time I’d be able to [meet] would be during Learn,” she said. “And now that 4th period is taken up by Advisory [and Return], we can’t do that.”
Paz’s club was started in quarantine, and she said they will likely have to transition back to out-of-school virtual meetings to have a more stable schedule.
“No one really wants a virtual meeting,” Paz said. “Everyone likes to be in person and hang out and eat snacks. [But] what can you do?”
From a teacher’s point of view, Coppolino can understand the shift to the new 4th period schedule.
“The danger of just saying, well, it’s all going to be open Learn […] is it just misses a lot of people,” Coppolino said. “I do know that there was a lot of frustration from a teacher standpoint, […] because the students we needed to see weren’t coming in.”
Coppolino said advisory is also helpful for building relationships among students.
“Developing these advisory communities in our classrooms really makes sure that everybody has a community, that everybody at Marshall knows somebody else that they can say “hi” to in the halls, that they can chat with,” she said.
Despite fewer Learn periods putting some pressure on clubs, Coppolino said she wants to see how the new 4th period goes.
“I want to give it a chance,” she said. “Because I think it combines a lot of pieces that are really necessary.”