New deans, stricter late policy and much more

Everyone’s gotten a late slip before but many don’t see any repercussions beyond that. Well that may be about to change. Many school policy changes have been made over the summer including the addition of the new grade level deans, the changing of community service hour requirements, and managing tardiness. The hope is that clearer requirements for the students and teachers will help make U Prep run more smoothly as a whole.

“What we’re trying to do is actually follow the policies that are already in place,” Sarah Peterson said. Many students don’t realize that there is a tardy system.

That is one of the reasons the grade level deans were added. For just the main office to keep track of how many times every single student of the 356 in the Upper School alone is late is a difficult task. The idea is that many hands make light work. With four more people to help keep track of the data each with only about eighty students to keep track of is much better than the earlier system.

“We started taking steps toward hiring and determining grade level deans in the middle of last year” Director of Upper School Ken Jaffe said.

The idea of grade level deans was born last year. While there are still many unknowns such as if there will be a terms system or if they will be given more responsibility, but for now everyone seems pretty happy with the situation.

One thing that many students and teachers seem to be excited about is the new “house” system. Each “house” is going to be made up of two different advisories from different grade levels.

For community conversations, “You’re going to be mixed up with other people in your house” Peterson said. It’s a tribute in a way to the old way of advisories where instead of everyone in an advisory being from the same grade they were mixed up.

Another change that has been made involves community service hours. Rather than having to earn 15 hours every year, students must now complete 20 hours a year by every grade.

“Being able to say you completed community service hours is something that a lot of colleges look positively upon” Fine Arts Teacher and Community Service Coordinator Dana Bettinger said.

“If you come to all three service days, you get three hours of credit for each day and then you get a tenth bonus hour if you attend all three” Bettinger said.

Many different policies have been implemented in order to increase the school’s efficiency and quality for teachers and students.

From service hours to grade level deans this year proves to be a promising one in experimentation as well as change.

By: Micho Matuszewski