Magdalena Mercado ’26
I know no one really likes the weekly meetings, but I don’t like how blatant everyone is with that fact. They’re so outwardly disrespectful. I see people sleeping and on their phone. Right after the meeting about recognizing slavery on our land, someone immediately started playing the “High School Musical” soundtrack on a speaker. It was on full blast, and it was not even before we were released. Dr. Kington [Head of School] hadn’t even said we were dismissed. We can at least not show that we don’t want to be there.
Addison Deng ’26
I really don’t support weekly ASMs. I’m a [Junior] and I’ve only experienced three ASMs, in addition to the cluster meeting about the new disciplinary rules, but I look back at those—and only one or two interested me. The speakers they invite are mostly hit or miss. Rather than hitting or missing frequently, they should just go back to bi-weekly ASMs.
Annabel Curry ’25
Sometimes you are simply checking the time or just writing down a link that they mention during a speech to check it out at a later time, and our phones are being taken away for that. It is not a warning system, it is simply a one time, take and go, which is very unhelpful and seems punitive rather than meant to help students or tell them to be better. Additionally, not only do they take away your phone, but your BlueCard as well, so it is very inconvenient for when you have to go to different classes afterwards, but can only pick it up at 3:00 p.m.. In terms of having ASM weekly, as a person who has sixth period lunch, it’s kinda hard to come to ASMs on Thursdays because there is no break during the whole day, from about 8:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., so it’s kind of a lot.
Karis Sarkisian ’24
I think that it is important to have some way to control people who are being rude, since apparently we are incapable of doing it ourselves. There are a lot of people, myself included, that get really distracted by others laughing, chatting, and typing things on their laptops during these talks. I think if you can’t be responsible enough to take an hour out of your day to learn something new, you can’t be a functioning Andover student because this is what school is all about. Some people may see the teachers in the aisles as ineffective or annoying, but I have seen many times people who blatantly ignore the request to put their phones away and do it as an act of defiance, which is rude and honestly just embarrassing for them.
Carolina Tieppo ’24
I find the adults patrolling ASM to be really distracting. Sometimes I am trying to listen to the speaker, and then all of a sudden I start hearing whispers of teachers just stealing people’s phones; there is a full conversation besides me while I am simply trying to listen to the speaker. When it comes to weekly ASMs, I personally just prefer ASM every other week, because I get the best of both worlds—I get new information from speakers without feeling stressed and pressed for time every week.
