Teachers’ Involvement Extends Beyond the Classroom

ByANNIESTENT

ByANNIESTENT

At Menlo, being a teacher goes beyond teaching a class. Along with their classes, they advise clubs, lead advocacies and much more. This is no mistake: teacher contracts are designed to include these requirements in order to cultivate a community where teachers and students are connected. The standard teacher contract requires teachers to teach at least four classes and be an advocate or be involved in an extracurricular program, according to Upper School

Director John Schafer. Those requirements vary in order to maintain equality among workload and commitments for teachers. “Arts teachers actually teach [more classes] than the math or science teachers, [in order to even the workload], because they in theory have less prepping and grading and so forth,” Schafer said.

The extracurricular and advocacy requirements are flexible as well. Some teachers run one major organization within the school, such as Junior Classical League, while others have several lower commitment roles. For certain tasks, such as fire drills or other emergency drills, small teams of teachers are formed to organize them. These teams exemplify lower commitment extracurricular roles.

Extracurriculars are not tracked by hours, but the level of commitment required is noted by the administration, specifically Upper School Assistant Director Adam Gelb, in order to keep time commitments relatively equal. Teachers with less time-consuming extracurriculars are still heavily involved in the school by other means. “We have a teacher who does not have a particularly heavy load on extracurriculars, so she helps out with subbing for other teachers. [...] The theory is that everybody pitches in,” Schafer said.

Teachers have agency in what they participate in; they are free to propose an idea for a new club or join an existing program. If they do not express specific interests, they are requested in a place where the school is in need, including but not limited to a club, admissions office or the Learning Center.

This freedom allows for teachers to be involved in a multitude of different things. Upper School English teacher Oscar King has a freshman advocacy with Upper School History teacher Nick Merlesena, and is an advisor for three different clubs. King advises the Menlo Literary Magazine, the Dungeons & Dragons Club and the Anime Club. For Dungeons & Dragons Club as well as Anime Club, he was asked by students who knew he was interested in the subjects to be their advisor.

“[Club advising] is so much fun. It’s all the fun and intellectual curiosity of a class, but no homework or grading,” King said.

In addition to the freedom of extracurriculars, not all teachers have an advocacy. Some instead serve as academic advisors who help students plan their classes, a program started last year. Upper School History teacher Katharine Hanson is an advisor and has enjoyed her involvement so far.

“It’s really fun to be an [academic advisor] because the school has so many new classes every year, it’s like an explosion of new things, new aca- demic offerings,” Hanson said.

Academic advisors help students navigate class offerings and build their schedules as they move through the high school. Many classes, especially later on, have prerequisites that need to be filled by classes that students take as a freshman or sophomore. The math course a student takes as a freshman can determine what science and math classes they take as a senior, for example.

Teachers like Hanson, who chose to be academic advisors, can help to make the process of choosing classes easier. “The idea is just a little more explanation and communication about [building a schedule],” she said.

Hanson also advises the Business & Entrepreneurship Club. Similar to King, she was approached by students asking her to be the advisor, as every official club needs a teacher advisor.

There are many different paths for teachers to fill the extracurricular requirement. Every path helps to achieve the administration’s goal of having teachers be strongly involved on campus. “This is the kind of school which heavily believes in the relationships between teachers and students. We want teachers to be around,” Schafer said.