Community Time is now Parliament

What was once Community Time is now Parliament, but there’s a lot more to it than just a name change.

Last spring, Meghan Waddle, US Dean of Students sought feedback on returning the “community” part into the allotted time.

The reply from Advisory Team Leaders (ATL), ASB leadership, counseling, and faculty was an agreement that change was needed. “What direction we were going to go was unknown,” says Heidi Wilbrandt, Social Studies teacher and co-leader of the Community Time transition. “We didn’t want to just reinvent the wheel and have Community Time 2.0 that was still not beloved.”

Starting with US Community Time, the decision was made to have student-centered activities providing students with choices which would result in program ownership and motivational decision-making. With that came a rebranding that came a new program now called Parliament which is defined as a group of owls.

The first Parliament took place Monday with ASB leaders taking the lead in putting together a program. Upper School students were given drop-in options including group discussions on current events in the Student Center. Students created art, played games, and wrote stories in the library. Outdoor games including spike ball, big Jenga, and ladder toss were held in the Owls Nest. Hugely popular was Chill Time in Humanities where students were able to play board games, watch sitcoms, and listen to music.

The options, created by students were relaxed and faculty in attendance were grade level ATLs and were there to help student leaders. Ninth graders took part in Freshman Seminar. Wilbrandt says all facilitators will discuss what worked and didn’t at the next ASB meeting. The hope is that the next student run Parliament in November will only get better.

Overlake’s Instructional Coach Jessica Hanson is working with Wilbrandt to expand the community spirit to our middle school students. Owl Nest is a MS/US advisory buddy program where high school students will be connecting with our younger kids. “We have this incredible opportunity when middle and high schoolers roam the same halls,” says Hanson. “The younger kids really look up to them, and it’s a way for the upper schoolers to spend some time with great kids while at the same time giving back to the spirit of what this institution really is.”

US Parliament takes place once every eight day rotation on E days, and click here for a look at Monday's activities.