At the start of this 2025-2026 school year, Manitou Springs High School students will be required to participate in lessons during advisory. This was a collective decision by the school administration due to feedback from previous years leading them to change the way advisory is run.
MSHS principal, Anna Conrad, received feedback from students about advisory. “It came about for a couple of different reasons,” Conrad said. “We got feedback from students that advisory varied really drastically from one classroom to another and that was frustrating and could be a challenge for kids.”
Advisory classes include the same students and teacher all four years. This year, teachers are encouraged to build their advisory classroom community through community building Fridays. “It’s a really special experience to go through four years with the same group of kids and the same staff member, and to have some deeper basis to build that experience together, especially through the relationship building on community building on Fridays,” Conrad said. “ I think it is going to be really powerful.”
Nathaniel Owen, a math teacher at MSHS, has taken on the responsibility of building the slideshows and activities for advisory. He was chosen because this is not his first time doing something like this. “At my previous school, I was in charge of leading the sophomore level advisory,” Owen said.
When Owen first started at Manitou, he was introduced to MSHS’s old way of advisory. “When I came to Manitou last year, one of the things that I noticed was missing was a lot of the structure out of advisory that I had seen in other schools,” Owen said, “whether it’s for better or for worse.”
Owen hopes to use his past experience to help students grow. “I’m trying to improve upon what I’ve learned at previous schools,” Owen said, “and bring that here to help students continue to grow.”
Brad Borkowski, the Careers in Construction teacher at MSHS, has a senior advisory this year. He believes that it will take his class some time to get used to the new way of doing things. “It’s going to be difficult this year for upperclassmen because we’ve run advisory the same way for four years,” Borkowski said. “Breaking those habits is hard, and so it’s going to be especially difficult for the seniors this year.”
Borkowski also believes that it is going to be an adjustment for the teachers. “It is a lot in the morning,” Borkowski said. “There’s no decompression time when you’re doing three lessons back to back, so it’s something teachers are going to have to get used to.”
Borkoski believes that after the adjustment is made this will be a positive change. “I think in the long run, it’s going to benefit the school,” Borkowski said.
Conrad believes that the biggest benefit will be the fact that this will instill MSHS’s core values. “Advisory will provide an opportunity for our students to lean into our core values,” Conrad said. “These include relationships, deep learning and opportunity more diligently and with greater depth.”
