Gale Williams, the school's advisory coordinator, wants the board to put its money where its mouth is. They don't pay teachers for it. They're contradicting themselves. At New Trier High School in Winnetka, home of the nation's first advisory program, a deep and longstanding investment in teachers as advisors appears to be paying off. Although only two out of five faculty members serve as advisors at any given time, New Trier evaluates all prospective teachers on their potential to be good advisors.
Teachers volunteer for the job, and advisory counts as one of the five classes in a normal workload.
Advisors perform many functions done by guidance counselors at other schools, such as registering students for classes and acting as their advocates with classroom teachers. They're constantly going to advisees' other teachers. They have to learn the curriculum for the whole school, not just their department. They also see sides of their advisees that might never appear if they merely taught them an academic subject. I thought just hated my guts.