The Advisory Guide: Designing and Implementing Effective Advisory Programs in Secondary Schools

School leaders agree that advisory is a core structure for personalizing schooling for adolescents. The challenge is crafting the best program for your students and faculty. The Advisory Guide helps secondary educators design and implement an advisory program tailored to their school’s needs and goals. In this comprehensive guide, the design chapters present snapshots of various advisory models, and help planning teams think through nine major issues that should be addressed in order for the program and faculty advisors to get off to a good start. The implementation chapters offer facilitation tips, suggestions for using 15 different formats, and over 130 sample activities organized around ten advisory themes, including student orientation, community building, tools for school and learning, goal-setting and assessment, life skills, and career exploration. Perfect for large and small schools, independent and public. The Advisory Guide is a must-have resource for anyone involved in advisory from study groups and committees thinking through implementation to the advisors in the classroom.

Rachel A. Poliner and Carol Miller Lieber have worked and learned together for years as a school consulting team and as program leaders for Educators for Social Responsibility. The Advisory Guide grew out of their experiences working with schools across the United States, as they helped faculty and administrators to imagine, create, and implement effective programs.