This year, RAHS implemented homeroom into the Wednesday schedule as a way to build a better community within the school.
Principal Dr. Jennifer Wilson expressed the intention behind homeroom. She said it’s a way to strengthen relationships that both staff and students have, prepare students with college and career readiness skills, and to help parents with having teachers that they can connect with.
Wilson also explained what factors ultimately led to the establishment of homeroom when she said, “Our RAHS culture data, attendance trends, and stakeholder feedback has prompted us to create this homeroom plan.”
Each Wednesday, in hopes of increasing student engagement and informing students, homeroom shares announcements about what his happening at the school. Suheyba Ali,(11), said, “I like that the teachers have individual check-ins about grades and tell us about activities and clubs that we can join if interested. Relaxing and participating in chill activities, coloring, door decorating, and just distressing in the middle of the school week from all of the hard stuff we do in other classes has been helpful.”
Dr. Wilson shared the improvements that have come with homeroom. She said, “…students are now engaging with our announcements because of the fantastic RAHS Report. Previously [the school] sent out announcements on Schoology and [were] unsure how many students read through each announcement. Teachers share that many students are loving watching the RAHS Report. We were also able to celebrate Latino Heritage Month during homeroom and feel confident these lessons were shared with all students, while in the past we could only hope that teachers shared them.”
Some teachers have found it hard to engage students. Mr. David Preslicka, a social studies teacher at RAHS, explained how hard it has been to create a sense of community when students are not putting in effort. He said, “I have a great homeroom partner and we both put a lot of energy into it…but we are not seeing a lot of energy coming back at us so far. Frankly…it is hard to continue to get questions like ‘why do we have to have homeroom?’ ”
Ali shared that there have been fewer students in her homeroom classes. She said, “I hear some students thinking of skipping homeroom and not going to class so I think there may be a lot of absences.”
Naomi Bretz (10) confirmed Ali’s observation. She said, “In my homeroom I’ve noticed less and less kids each week, this week only eighteen people were present, while seventeen people were absent.
Students have also found it hard to get to classes on time with the shorter passing time on Wednesdays. Ali said, “Getting to your next period is so hard because of the short five minutes, when people are always in the middle of the hallways talking. Some people have homeroom in A wing and need to get to E wing next, so it’s really hard to be on time on Wednesday now.”
Some students express that getting more work time in homeroom would be helpful. Bence Jecsi (10) said, “…time could and should be used for better things… I would like to see more work time … instead of forced team building activities, which are awkward most of the time. I don’t really know what lessons would be taught in homeroom, except for the regular school value teachings, which get old and redundant.”
Ali agrees with Jecsi. She said, “Just having some time to go to different classes and get extra help during homeroom would be the most excellent idea.”
