On May 11, principal April Scott sent out an email announcing the addition of a second tutorial starting this fall. Instead of a seven-period schedule on Monday, students will be allowed an additional 30-minute tutorial period in the early mornings to seek help from teachers and take make-up quizzes.

Since a majority of students and some teachers have wanted to change in the schedule for quite a while, the Fremont Education Association (FEA) and MVHS decided to take action on the matter.

According to FEA site president Lora Lerner, the idea of an additional tutorial did not have a unanimous consensus at first and needed several months to gain support. Some staff members didn’t want this change, questioning the value and efficiency of a second tutorial. Therefore, it was agreed (through voting on the measure as a staff) that the tutorial would be implemented as a trial period and staff would gather data about the efficiency of the change on students’ grade ethics, stress level, etc.

“This more structured tutorial will serve almost as a ‘tracking tool’ so we can better collect information on its effect on students,” Lerner said.

Even though the tracking system has not yet been fully developed, it is intended for teachers to track attendance of students during tutorial. The teachers would use this optional tool to help struggling students attend an expected guidance session in their classroom during tutorial.

Tutorials are either open or closed. In a closed tutorial, students have to be in a class for the duration of the 30 minutes. In an open tutorial (such as the current one), there is more freedom for the students because they can create their own schedule during the half hour. Even though the new tutorial has not been confirmed as a closed tutorial, the future tutorial is intended to be a more structured tutorial for students to schedule appointment slots and for teachers to have ‘intervention time’, or work time to help a designated amount of students.

The specifics of the tutorial have not yet been figured out, but teachers and staff hope to use this addition in the schedule as an opportunity to offer additional guidance to students who seek for it.