Enrichment day gets a make-over

Anticipation was high leading up to Jan. 20, the first day of the new format for enrichment days. As previously reported (Half-day Fridays need a makeover), students had grown weary of the half-day Fridays, which began last school year and administrators and teachers responded by making changes.

“We used a variety of Google Form surveys we sent out and feedback from both teachers and students to determine what the best format for enrichment day would be,” said Principal Meredith Inbal. 

The new format starts with students meeting in their parliaments for 45 minutes. From there, they go to clubs and then attend a 2-hour mini-course based on their interests. Parliaments and clubs had already been a part of enrichment days, but mini-courses were new. 

Inbal explained that students would keep their mini-course for all 4 remaining enrichment days. Part of the reason for this is that some of the mini-courses “require permission slips, leaving the building, potentially money and things they may need to buy to participate.” Inbal hopes there will be “increased engagement, [because] people are learning something new that they might not see in a typical English or math class.” 

Getting into a mini-course entailed a 2-step process. First, students completed ranked-choice surveys from a list of about 60 mini-courses, choosing the ones that they would like to participate in. Then, about a week later, on Jan. 6 at 12:59 p.m students received an email with the subject line “ENROLLMENT STARTS NOW!!” informing them that they could select which mini-courses they would prefer, ranking them from 1 – 22. 

There was a lot of chatter from staff and students once everyone knew which mini-course they’d be doing.

New faculty member, Mr. Emmanuel Khuu was excited to be doing bowling. “I chose it because I enjoy bowling and I wanted students to see me outside of an educational setting,” he said. “I’m looking forward to students having fun with each other and being a part of that.” 

Tenth grader Vivi Chen got ice skating. “My first choice. I enjoy ice skating. I took ice skating for a month, but I lost contact with it,” she said.

But not everyone was as lucky as Chen.

“I didn’t get my first choice. That was my fault but it was because the Google Form was really difficult to fill out correctly,” said sophomore Lissandra Ferrante. “I ended up with bullet journaling which is still fun, but I wanted ice skating or Flushing Eats. I expect not to know many people and to be bored for the majority of the period.”

At the end of the first enrichment day with the new format students and staff were generally pleased.

“It’s way better than before and how awkward the gaps and how it was just a parliament day and not being productive whereas now we actually have something to do and be productive and not just hanging around,” said Chen. 

Sophomore Miriam Yagudayev echoed Chen. “I like it better now than it was before because now it feels like they actually have an actual idea of what’s going on,” she said. “Like before it felt like they planned it a day or two before. Compared to then and now, this one seemed like a lot more activities students would actually prefer than before.” 

Staff members that led mini-courses also thought it went well.

“In the first session we focused on seeing what interests they have, what goals they have, what fields they want to go into so that we can apply to specific internships,” said teacher Eleni Stellatos. “So now I’m in the process of helping them track down internships, and the next step is writing their applications and applying. So I’m really excited to see where they get in.”