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ROAR making a difference with students, teachers
With the exit of seminar and the entrance of ROAR this school year, staff and students alike have found positives, negatives, and ways to change ROAR moving forward.
Smith-Cotton principal Wade Norton said that one of the main reasons for changing seminar to ROAR is for time purposes. He said that administration wanted to try to find a way that students could have a study period and a time to refocus.
“We noticed that students and teachers both thought that 20 minutes wasn’t enough,” Norton said of the previous seminar period. Business teacher Bryant Lazenby agrees, stating that 40 minutes is very valuable.
As an FBLA adviser, Lazenby thinks that the time ROAR holds is great for holding club meetings. He noted that FBLA had struggled finding a time to meet where everyone could come, and now they have a time where all members are in the building so they can attend the meeting.
Senior Lauren McFail thinks that ROAR has been beneficial to her because she gets more time to work on her homework.
Another new aspect to ROAR is the accountability sheets. Since students have been filling out their accountability sheets, Norton has noticed an increase in grades and attendance. He also noticed that many students have been reaching their goals set on the accountability sheets. Lazenby thinks the accountability sheets are a good way to keep students on track, but has trouble keeping up with them himself. He noted that with ROAR only being two days a week, it’s hard to remember to go over them and has to remind himself. McFail noted that filling in her accountability sheet hasn’t really made a change in her academics.
“It’s still new and it hasn’t quite sunk in to my daily routine yet,” said Lazenby.
To improve ROAR, Lazenby would make it every day and shorten it to around 30 minutes, so that it fits into a regular schedule and is still a valuable study time. Norton does admit that the new bell schedule this year has been confusing not only for students, but for teachers and administration. McFail would make the atmosphere of ROAR a bit more relaxed, but structured enough so that students can still get their work done.
Next year, Norton would like to move ROAR up to three days a week. He wants students to continue to set goals for themselves and hopefully achieve them. Both Norton and Lazenby believe that ROAR was a step in the right direction.
“It’s a good stride into something productive,” Lazenby said.