Students may notice a significant lack of time spent in homeroom this year, because WA is no longer holding “Double A” sessions regularly.

These “Double A” sessions were supposed to fulfill an accreditation requirement for WA, and was marketed to students as a time to meet with and get to know a teacher in the building (their homeroom teacher). In case there were any issues that a student was facing at home, in school, or socially, they were to hopefully develop a friendly relationship with this teacher and have somebody to talk to.

Despite its good intentions, these meetings had no chance of helping students at all, and only served to waste time. If students only have an opportunity to meet with an advisor for fifteen minutes a month, there is little to no chance that a student will have enough time to get to know their teacher and establish a personal relationship, especially if there are around 20 other students in the room at the same time. In a perfect world, every student would have an equal amount of time with their advisor; however this time would be less than a minute per student, and it is nearly impossible for a student to get to know a teacher by only spending one minute with a teacher per month.

Additionally, these sessions were used to try and have some sort of information delivered to students. Last year, one of the sessions was used just to finish watching a documentary on Chris Herren; another was used to try and have students relax, with specific exercises that students were told to participate in. While using this time to help convey a concept is an excellent idea, not only is fifteen minutes not long enough by itself to learn something, but by the time every student arrived to the classroom, no one would be focused enough to actually pay attention to what they were learning.

Instead of “Double A”, there should have been a semi-regular meeting for around 30 minutes every two weeks. During this period, students should just be allowed to relax or do their homework because let’s face it, that’s what most people did in “Double A” anyways.

A mandatory DLT is possibly the best option for the benefit of students. If the student chooses to relax, they get the chance to do so. If they want to study, they have the option and resources available, and if they want to take the time to get to know or meet with a teacher, they have a significant amount of time to do so. A DLT is long enough that students can do whatever they feel they need to do, while also giving them enough of a break to relax and release stress.

“Double A” may not have done much for students, but it paved the way for new methods of student relaxation. A mandatory DLT for students would check all of the boxes that “Double A” did, and more, and should be considered as a way to reduce student stress instead of pointless 15 minute monthly meetings.