Although there are officially 21 students in Strickland Middle School chess advisory, three of those had a grade below 70 on their 3-week progress report. So I am starting chess advisory with 18 students. Of those, eight are returning students from last year.

Six of the eight returning students have been assigned one trainee, and two of the returning students have two trainees each. Apparently, about 29 students marked chess as their first choice of advisory. This year's chess room can barely hold 20, so not everyone who wanted chess got chess.