Students who attend New Trier High School are assigned to single-gender adviseries, based on the gender provided by a parent.

This system is unnecessary and should come to an end. New Trier students would socially benefit from a tight-knit group of multiple genders. There is really no reason to have a single-gender advisery system—high school students are able to socialize with peers outside of their own gender. Also, fostering connections between people of different genders might even help with issues that New Trier has regarding gender, especially problems with sexual assault/harassment.

Additionally, the advisery system neglects LGBTQ+ students. Transgender students who do not have the support of their parents are assigned to an advisery that goes against their gender for 4 years. Non-binary students may not have an advisery to join even if their parents are supportive of their identity. Many other LGBTQ+ students also feel uncomfortable in their adviseries because of the single-gender system, myself included.

There are multiple options in terms of solutions to this issue. One, make the same-gender advisery system optional and ask incoming freshman students whether they would prefer to be in a male, female, or multi-gender advisery. Alternatively, make every New Trier advisery a combination of all genders.