Math teacher Tom Snarksy greeting parents. Photo taken by Falyn Kelley
Malden High hosted its first Back to School Night on Monday, September 18th introducing a new setup commonly used in middle schools and even some elementary schools.
Parents who attended had traveled around the school and visited each teacher’s classroom according to their child’s day one schedule. After about seven minutes of listening to each teacher explain their course and expectations, parents had three minutes passing time to transition to the next period.
To help wandering parents, Student Ambassadors stood in the halls to offer their guidance. The Student Ambassador program is a new program that was started this year by Brunelli guidance counselor Susan Lessard. It’s open to sophomores, juniors and seniors who are looking for volunteer hours. Student Ambassadors participate in school events and during school days will do jobs such as conducting student tours and organizing schedules for the front desk greeters.
Juniors Michayla Moody and Nana Ama Boadi-Acheampong are both Student Ambassadors that participated in the event. They described Back to School Night as energetic and participatory. Boadi-Acheampong said she felt great participating and that “the night was incredible, [with] every Student Ambassador [doing] their part.” Moody shared that the sense of time and organization could have been improved, she said that in the future, “giving [parents] only seven minutes may not be ideal.”
Since this was the first attempt of the new system, minor errors happened. Some periods were given more time than others because of the extra time taken during period one, as parents were still arriving. Luckily, at the end of the night, there were an extra 15 minutes for parents to either see a teacher from a period they missed, go see Tornado Travelers Club Advisor Shauna Campbell to talk about the Tornado Traveler club or go to Cafe A to enjoy some pizza and hear about the Malden Rising Leaders program.
Math teacher Kin Chan, who has been working at Malden High for more than 20 years, praised the new system as it “is much simpler and attentive”, especially with the help of Student Ambassadors like Moody and Boadi-Acheampong. She explained how years ago the school attempted the new system though it never continued. Now, Ms. Chan sees that parents are much more interactive when visiting classrooms and hopes more parents attend the next Back to School night and future parent-teacher conferences.
As Boadi-Acheampong said, “Whenever you try a new system like this, you never know the response you will receive.” Hopefully, next year, times can be adjusted and more parents will be able to attend.
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