This year, North’s advisory curriculum aims to focus more on community than it has before due to push from students and faculty, according to Principal Henry Turner.

In previous years, advisory has mostly acted as an opportunity for announcements and for students to sign up for WIN, according to Principal Henry Turner. Now, with the new phone policy, the curriculum will instead focus on hands-on experiences and discussions.

“The essence of advisory is to create community, and to help create an environment for students to feel supported in another place in their school,” said Turner.

By working with the SFA, Turner said he hopes to rework advisory so students can connect more with their peers and discuss more personal topics.

“Our SFA has been successful in the past in creating those kinds of agreements,” Turner said when discussing the organization of the policies. “So they’re going to work this year on creating some agreements about ‘what does a good advisory look like?’”

Another focus with advisory this year will be handling conversations about difficult subjects and current events.

“Those conversations might be harder to have in classes because not everybody takes the same classes,” said English teacher Charlene Beh, a sophomore adviser. “But then maybe something happens that needs immediate conversation, so I think that’s also a really important part of advisory.”

History teacher Adam George, Beh’s co-adviser, reiterated that advisory can encourage community and civil conversations.

“It’s a great way to help make sure that every student is engaged in the Newton North community and for them to tap into the capability to convey things that we as a school feel strongly about,” he said.

Students have also observed changes during advisory.

“They’re trying to encourage students to engage with others around them,” said junior Dasha Agadzghanyan. “We even did ice-breakers at the beginning of the year.”