Advisory Program

All Middle School students are placed in an advisory group of mixed gender and grade level and paired with an advisor that they meet with twice a week.

Each advisor creates a personal relationship with his or her advisees and is available to students when they need an advocate, a friend, or a sympathetic listener. At the beginning of each year, the advisor helps orient the students to Rivers and its policies. The bi-weekly advisory time is used to help foster quality communication between students, peers, teachers, administrators, and parents while also helping advisees with their academic progress by setting goals, reviewing comments, and helping them stay motivated and organized. Advisory time also allows students to cultivate healthy and positive relationships and to develop feelings of trust and caring between students, the advisor and the group. Overall, it is the advisor's responsibility to support the academic, artistic, athletic and personal pursuits of his or her advisees.

Every Upper School student is assigned a faculty advisor at the beginning of his or her freshman and junior year and stays with that person for two years. Ninth and tenth graders are placed in single gender advisory groups during these two years. The advisor to student ratio in the Upper School is 1 to 7. Advisors meet once a week with their group to discuss issues pertaining to school or adolescent life, review grades and comments, or simply talk about the latest movie or CD. They also meet individually with advisees throughout the school year. The advisor system is yet another way Rivers ensures that each student will have a faculty member to serve as a mentor, role model, and friend.