ICAP or Admin Caps?

By Jack Denney

Since the inception of Individual Career Academic Planning, or ICAP, “Stay Put Tuesday” has been right along to ride its coattails. Stay Put Tuesday is an initiative put in place by administrators at Jenks to help encourage students to work on their ICAP assignments during Advisory. Where students are typically allowed to move freely around the school and get the help they need from different teachers, “Stay Put Tuesday” shuts that down and keeps students enclosed in their advisory.

Although it is true that ICAP is important, and is a graduation requirement, I find that students at Jenks rarely spend their given time to work on those assignments. For the four years of high school I have spent at Jenks, I find that “Stay Put Tuesday” is typically spent talking to friends, getting on your phone, or taking a nap. With the allowance of roaming through the school freely taken away, I find it hard to see students getting the help they need on such a valuable day of the week.

Clubs, sports, and other extracurricular activities already take away valuable student-teacher time from students. “Stay Put Tuesday” eliminates an entire thirty minute period where students could receive help from their teachers, and instead are locked away in advisory to end up sitting on their phones.

I did some research, and took photos of people in advisory to see what they really do during the time we are given to work on ICAP, and aren’t allowed to leave our classroom. Here is what I found:

Students during “Stay Put Tuesday” are meant to seek help from teachers, work on their classwork, or complete ICAP assignments. However, this image shows how students really spend their time during advisory.

A group of students gather together during advisory instead of working on ICAP, not a single chromebook is in sight.

An Improvement! A singular chromebook for one student. However, every student but one depicted in this picture has their phone out–even the one with the chromebook out.

The desolate halls of Jenks High School Building Five, absent of students in need of help from other teachers.

Students often bring video gaming devices or simply play on their mobile phones, even when there is an ICAP assignment afoot.

Finally! The first student we have seen being productive. However, sat right next to him is a student who has his AirPods in while taking a nap.

A teacher sat with his student playing chess during “Stay Put Tuesday,” while simultaneously in the background, students gaze at their phones.