Counseling Department Hosts Organization Day

After a return to school following a long year of remote learning, the Counseling Department hosted an Organization Day on March 30 in the Teachers’ Cafeteria on the fifth floor. Guidance counselors provided tips to help students organize their notes and gave free, new supplies, including a range of diverse books, for students to take. Stuyvesant students were given an opportunity to work on their organizational skills for this spring term.

Organization Day has been held since 2015, traditionally after the first marking period of each semester. “We chose that time [because] that gives students six weeks or so in the new semester [to] be able to recognize where they might be falling short with their own organization skills,” Assistant Principal of Pupil Personnel Services Casey Pedrick said.

The event had a great turnout, with supplies running out by the end of sixth period. “There was so much [more] draw than ever before and we were not prepared with supplies. Moving forward, we're going to have one in the fall and spring every year,” Guidance Counselor Sarah Kornhauser said.

In past years, Organization Day received little traction from the student body as very few people even knew about it. “We had always been in the guidance counseling conference room, which is a much smaller space and if you didn’t know about it, you didn’t know about it,” Kornhauser said. “This was the first time we had it in [the Teachers’ Cafeteria] upstairs, so it was much bigger.”

Organization Day was planned to take almost the whole school day to reach as many students as possible. “We set it up so that it’s period two into [...] school. The event took [up] almost the entire school day [...] to assure that all students had an opportunity to attend. School counselors and myself take turns staffing it throughout the day to give students some type of verbal skill and help them organizationally,” Pedrick said. “It’s super easy; we advertise [the event], we book a room, we staff it, and we order a lot of supplies.”

Students who participated in Organization Day found that it helped them get a grasp of their academic notes. “I had like five different classes’ worth of work in one binder, and it was just a mess. Organization Day really helped me separate that into many binders, and now I can organize everything,” freshman Nasif Attiq said.

Pedrick shared that the motivation behind the event was to help students get some semblance of control in their academic lives. “It’s an event that I created a number of years ago. I like being able to file things and have things labeled, so I know that it helps me benefit [from the] stress and anxiety in my work,” Pedrick said. “It falls right into the complementary part of being a school counselor and helping students manage their stress and anxiety and executive functioning skills.”

Some students acknowledge the helpfulness of the event and how the tips they received helped them to become more organized. “Basically, I learned how to put things in the right places,” Attiq said. “It’s chronological, [and] like in geometry [...] I’m able to find the things I need, so it’s very helpful.”

The Counseling Department hopes that Organization Day is one way for students to have more comfort and ease at Stuyvesant. “Even if it’s just 10 minutes a day for a student, or a school counselor, or a teacher, or an administrator, to be able to reorganize [themself], it’s always a good thing,” Pedrick said. “We always encourage students, even though it’s only two days a school year, to take a moment every single day to reorganize, purge papers, leave things at home, label things, [...] to be able to get a sense of relief, of calm.”