For the 2024-25 school year, there will no longer be a thirty-minute advocacy period before the first class of the day. This change in advocacy time is accompanied by the shortened school day made effective by HISD with the school day now ending at 4:00 pm instead of 4:10 pm.
CVHS assistant principal Juan Garner, played a pivotal role in changing advocacy. Working closely with administrators, Ramon Moss and Melissa Matsu they had to consider where to take time away from throughout the school day.
“Should we take away from lunch? It’s our thing, you know, having this big lunch for everybody … It’s part of our culture. We couldn’t really divide the 10 minutes [amongst the classes] then we’d have forty-three, forty two minute classes. So we said, ‘Let’s take away from Advo,’ and we made advocacy drop from thirty to twenty minutes,” stated Garner.
Although advocacy would inevitably be shorter, the decision to move advocacy to after fourth period on full schedule days is a result of student tardies, according to Garner.
“Advocacy was a cushion. I certainly thought the number one reason for this change were the tardies to school … You wouldn’t know school started at 8:30. Kids in the hallways, cars in the parking lot, the drop off in the mornings. It was all because of advocacy. Coming to school late.”
After approximately a full grading cycle of this schedule, Garner notes a significant decrease in the number of students who come to school late. He explains that once students arrive on campus, there is usually no problem with students attending their classes on time.
“It was usually getting to school [on time] that was the problem,“said Garner.
According to an Upstream Poll with a survey sample of 51 students across different grade levels, over 76 percent of students do not find this new advocacy schedule effective.
Additionally, over 78 percent of students in the survey claimed that they preferred the old advocacy schedule over the current one.
Arjun Chhibber, a sophomore at CVHS, has experienced both advocacy schedules. As a freshman, he experienced the former advocacy schedule, and is adjusting to the current schedule, which he believes makes him less efficient at his work.
“I don’t like the new advocacy schedule. I wish it was still in the morning, just because it allowed me to get work done before class.”, stated Chibber.
On the other hand, seniors and juniors at CVHS have been acclimated to the older schedule and have had to adjust to a less familiar routine, with over half of the respondents stating they have been used to three years of the former advocacy time.
“This afternoon advocacy isn’t very useful productively [speaking], other than getting to eat and chat with peers, but it’s not very helpful as it used to have been,” said Taylor Nguyen, a senior.
Taylor explained that the former advocacy schedule allowed her to get work done before class. Using it as her study time she was able to manage her time properly and gauge what she could and couldn’t get done in the mornings before classes started.
“I used to think the night before [school]: what can I get done now? What do I need to do later? And what can I afford to get done in Advocacy?”
Now, since advocacy takes place right before lunch, she instead finds it to be an extension of the already long lunch period.
When asked if they would like to return to the old advocacy schedule, over 84 percent of students replied yes.
However, Mr. Garner offers a different perspective.
“I don’t see us going back to the old schedule … Tardies are down, and we need to tighten [our schedule] a little bit,” said Garner.
