When the Columbine shooting occurred in 1999 , math teacher Susan Little was a freshman at East. She was a senior by the time 9/11 shocked the country.
One thing that she says helped her through the traumatic events was East’s now-defunct Advisory Periods.
“It was really important to have that group,” Little said. “It was really cool to be able to process that, with other people who are experiencing exactly the same thing, as opposed to an academic class where you have 31 kids and a curriculum. It’s really nice to have that small group feel.”
While Advisory Periods fell apart in 2014 due to their infrequent and unstructured programming, the same idea of small peer groups has resurfaced in the new Wildcat PACs.
As East students signed onto PowerSchool in August, they discovered the new block at the bottom of their schedule. PAC—short for Pause And Connect—is an initiative from a group of students and teachers to prioritize mental health and improve diversity among classes at East.
For the program coordinator, science teacher Auburn James, the 35-minute long PACs were a way she could relate her own experience to help and identify with East students.
“I feel kind of weird sharing this because there is a stigma about mental health issues, but I struggled with depression a lot in high school and that’s something I still take medication for,” James said. “I know that there’s a lot of stress in this environment. You know, I teach a lot of honors and AP classes so I can see that in my students.”
Improving mental health through small group environments is one of the main objectives of the weekly periods. While typical classes are set with rigid curricula and filled with dozens of students, each PAC has between 10 and 15 students from the same grade level, who will continue meeting together for all of high school.
“You can really connect with another student and then help the other students,” sophomore Ada Stewart said. “I think it could be shorter, but I do think it’s good.”
Over the summer, James sat down for a few days to manually arrange all 1,500 East students into 119 small groups, each headed by a staff member. Nearly every adult in the building is responsible for a PAC, including the principal and counselors.
“I very intentionally sculpted PACs so that we would have diverse groupings that were accurate representations of the student body at East, and so students are going to be forming relationships with people across ‘track’ levels and getting to know people that are different from them,” James said. “Hopefully, kind of opening their minds and making them more well rounded individuals.”
Along with supporting students’ mental health, another major focus of the program is to provide a space for students of different academic ‘tracks’ and socioeconomic backgrounds to discuss topics such as ostracism, identity and belonging. At an academically-driven school like East, many students find themselves rarely interacting with others outside of their courses, and those who choose to take all-honors classes or all-college preparatory classes tend to stay within the same groupings.
For newer students, it also serves to just make new acquaintances. Sophomore Jerica Allison transferred from a Durham high school over the summer.
“Personally, I actually really like it because while the classes are shorter on Wednesdays, it’s just like an opportunity to speak to more people,” Allison said. “I’m a new student here, and I don’t know that many people, so I think it’s very helpful.”
PAC creators have also emphasized that the time is an opportunity for staff to forge connections with students.
“As a teacher, I feel like I’m lucky when I get to know students on a deeper level,” James said. “But it doesn’t always happen with every child because you don’t have the time for that. Having an intentional small group, like, ‘We’re going to talk about this,’ the purpose is that all students will have staff that they feel close to, that’s there to support them.”
Meeting different students has already been welcome for some teachers.
“It’s very valuable. This is probably the most important thing I’ll do all day, making connections with students that I wouldn’t normally see in my classes,” Hoffman said. “I think building those relationships is what high school is all about.”
Yet, even after the initial icebreaker sessions, some students say they have found it difficult to actually get to know their PAC leader and fellow classmates.
“I guess it’s an interesting idea,” senior Julia Xiao said. “But it’s also like, you’re not going to want to be sharing your insecurities or problems with that many strangers in a room.”
Others have described similar situations in their PACs.
“I think the idea on paper sounds really good, but people in my class don’t seem to be super motivated about it,” junior Tatum Cubrilovic said. “It should hopefully, like the family aspect, get better as the weeks go on.”
Freshman Timothy Taffe recalled instances where he would ask his classmates a question, but receive no response.
“I feel like it’s pretty awkward, because like you’d go through all the questions and then everyone’s just kind of sitting there,” Taffe said. “I feel like really the only good thing about it is that we’re not really doing any work.”
For PAC leaders, the structure of the period also entails adding another curriculum to their teaching agendas, though curricula were pre-designed by School Improvement Team members, including James and Hoffman, over the summer to facilitate the addition. The current PAC lesson plan is based on a PBS program called “Facing History and Ourselves,” focusing on societal issues like racism.
The organizers of the PACs say they believe the extra work will pay off.
“It can be stressful for teachers because it’s yet another thing that they’re taking on,” Hoffman said. “That part is hard, but the importance of making sure that our students feel a connection with each other and with at least one adult in the buildings is enough that we should do it, even if it’s more on our plates.”
Principal Ken Proulx, who originally championed the idea of bringing back an Advisory-adjacent program, agrees that the time and effort put into the PACs will be worth it for students.
“I think that the investment of 35 minutes out of the week will pay dividends 1,000 times more,” Proulx said. “It’s a small sacrifice in instructional time, but it gives students an opportunity to create those relationships with students and adults, to feel like part of a supportive group, to learn ways to cope with certain things and to learn to navigate the school to get the help that they need.”
Photo by Caroline Chen/The ECHO.
