An advisor is a faculty or staff member who helps oversee and guide your child’s overall experience at Milton. They are the main communication link between you and the school on matters that relate to your child. Each advisor typically advises four to eight students and many students have the same advisor throughout their Upper School experience.
What should I expect of my child’s relationship with their advisor?
All Milton advisors want to help students maximize their opportunities for academic and personal growth at Milton. Every advisor is committed to getting to know each advisee and to their success as an individual at Milton Academy. Your child should feel comfortable reaching out to their advisor for information, support, or ideas. Advisors typically meet and talk with their advisees frequently—in a group or individually, depending on schedules. Advisors will either be able to answer your child’s questions (or your own) about school policies, academic and otherwise; find the correct answers and get back to your child or you; or help your child seek out the answers they need. Part of the relationship aims to strengthen your child’s skilI of self-advocacy. If a student is involved in any academic or disciplinary difficulty, the advisor is part of the team that will help guide your child. Some students develop close relationships with their advisors; other students develop those same close relationships with other faculty and staff members. Regardless, an advisor will serve as a responsive person always willing to listen, support, and help direct an advisee.
What should I expect from my child’s advisor?
You can expect to be able to turn to the advisor for a sense of your child’s life at Milton, and to get an adult perspective on how your child is doing relative to the challenges of growing up and taking responsibility for their learning and experience at the school. You can expect that the advisor will know about regulations, policies, and typical patterns of teenagers as they respond to the particular demands of each year in high school. The advisor will write summary reports about your child’s progress in November, February, and June. You can expect that an advisor will reach out to you during the first weeks that your student is new to Milton, and thereafter, as well, when the need to let you know about something affecting your child arises. Conversely, if you reach out to the advisor, by phone or email, the advisor will get back to you—and can suggest who to talk to at Milton for any issues that may arise. The advisor’s central relationship is with the student—but the advisor also works in partnership with parents to ensure the best possible experience at Milton.
What is my responsibility to the advisor?
Relevant information about a student always helps an advisor relate to a child more and better assist. If family or developmental issues could affect a child’s experience at school, then be sure to reach out to the advisor. If you observe patterns that trouble you, whether your child lives at Milton or at home, or if your family is facing a challenge, let your child’s advisor know. If you have a question, or are unsure how to direct it, please contact your child’s advisor.
What is a class dean?
Parents should feel free to reach out to class deans as well. The class deans assume overall responsibility for members of each class. The class deans supplement, but do not replace, a student’s individual advisor. Class deans coordinate the work of all the advisors guiding students in a given class, and are responsible for supervising class activities. Class deans also work with student leaders to plan class events and to establish positive and respectful relationships within the class.