Every morning, middle schoolers and advisers meet in their advisory room from 8:15-8:25 for Morning Muster. Morning Muster is a 10 minute time period at the beginning of the day to get an overview of what’s coming up and see their friends before going to class. Some students like it and some students don’t.

Director of Middle School Susie Wu says that Morning Muster was added as a way for advisories to see each other daily.

“When we changed our schedule like 5 years ago, they added Morning Muster for middle school students as a regular daily touch point for advisers to see their middle school students. Upper school advisories see their advisers every day during an advisory check-in on their regular schedule but middle school doesn’t have that in our regular schedule.” Wu said.

Eighth grader Paige Johnson really enjoys Morning Muster and likes seeing her friends in advisory before school starts.

“I think that it’s a great way to connect with people and be able to see and talk to them, especially if you don’t have a lot of classes with them or wouldn’t get the chance to see them throughout the day,” Johnson said.

Teacher Gus Feliu has had an advisory for the whole 10 years he’s worked here. While he agrees with Johnson that the time is a nice social piece, he doesn’t see the purpose of Morning Muster or think it’s necessary.

“It’s nice to see you guys, and to touch base with you, but, the reality is that like, any information, with rare exceptions, that I give you at Morning Muster, you already know on Schoology or could be easily emailed,” Feliu said. “Even with something like attendance, you’re going to get attendance taken five minutes later when you walk into your first-period class. So it isn’t clear to me what is so essential that we have to have Morning Muster.” 

Seventh grader Zoe Mirchandani finds Morning Muster as a good time to see her friends, but also as a great time to check in with her advisor and start her day positively.

“Morning Muster gives me a chance to maybe check in with my advisor about any stuff I need to do or work on” Mirchandani said. “It gives me a chance to just kind of start my day off in the right way.” 

Wu acknowledges that it may seem unnecessary and short but she thinks if we didn’t have it, we would (and do) miss it.

“Morning Muster, that 10 minutes of time can be kind of like ‘Why do we even have to be here?’ It’s so short, I know, but yet I think we would miss it.”  Wu said. “We do miss it when we don’t have those touch points. ”