Last year during the 2018-2019 school year the Sophmore and Freshmen class had the Summit Learning Platform that we used during History and English. Summit is an online learning platform that helps students connect their long-term goals to their daily actions. It was developed by a variety of different teachers to have their student get a more personalized learning experience. Last year the Sophmore and Freshman (now the Juniors and Sophomores) were the first grade levels to have the full extent of Summit in their classes. One of the parts of the summit to create a personalized learning experience was the meet with your “mentors.” The mentors were teachers who were actively using Summit in their classes. 

This year only the freshman class from last year (now sophomores) are using Summit, whereas the now Junior class doesn’t anymore. Asking people about their summit experiences last year the majority of them said they didn’t like using summit but having a mentor to talk to “made me feel more connected.” That’s why there’s this debate going on as to whether or not we should keep the summit mentors from last year. That brings into question would we keep our same mentors from last year? Should our teachers this year be our new mentors? Should they follow the same guidelines summit gave them from last year? As of right now, we don’t know, there have been some surveys sent out to get students opinion on the matter.

I think we should keep having a mentoring meeting with our teachers because I know a lot of people felt it beneficial and made them feel a little bit less stressed. For high school students, the stress of keeping up your grades, performing well in extracurriculars, and always worrying about our future is a lot. Having a teacher to openly talk to about your grades and what isn’t working well for you is comforting.