School Transitions
Author: By CAREN CRAMER

As a new school year begins, thousands of area students will face important transitions in their lives.
Whether it is the move from middle to high school or from elementary to middle school, how these challenges are handled can impact a child’s future successes. On the surface, the changes appear obvious – new school, different schedule, etc. However, students entering sixth grade, as well as those entering ninth grade, confront new academic and social environments, as well as changes to their physical and emotional lives.
Understanding and harnessing all of these aspects can help manage parents’ and students’ expectations as the new adventures unfold.

ENTERING MIDDLE SCHOOL

“The first day of middle school is the biggest transition in a student’s K-12 education,” says national education expert Bruce Hammond. Other local educators and administrators support that viewpoint because middle schools have been designed to “mimic the high school model.”
What does that mean?
Gone are days of cozy, close-knit, classrooms with a small number of classmates and one teacher primarily throughout the day. The “cubby” has been replaced by the locker and the concept of staying with one teacher all day has been replaced by one in which there are different teachers for each subject in different rooms.
“Middle-school students can face working with six or more teachers on any given day, each with a different style and set of expectations” explains Renee Foose, principal of Boonsboro Middle School in Washington County, Md. Conversely, each teacher is responsible for 90 to 160 students, which can be unnerving to even the most confident child.
Some students will be excited to begin this new adventure. Some have concerns about the changes, wondering if they will be in the same classes as their friends, what the cafeteria will be like and how they will remember their locker combinations.
Sixth-graders seek resolution to a host of issues. The best way to reconcile these and other concerns is to be informed – about the school, the expectations and your child.
Adapting to different teachers for each class and understanding that they can choose an elective are just two examples of academic changes awaiting sixth-graders, says Sharon Boettinger, supervisor of counseling and student support for Frederick County, Md., Public Schools. Additional academic expectations facing new middle-schoolers can include:
• More homework
• Long-term, independent projects
• Introduction to higher math, including geometry and algebra
• Different grading structures, such as earning course credits vs. passing or failing a course
• Different schedule structures (six periods vs. four in some school systems)

Simultaneously, sixth-graders will need to adapt to the social and physical changes looming before them. Larger schools mean more people, making familiar faces difficult to find. Friends – old and new – begin to play an important role.
The once oldest students become the youngest in a larger, more diverse student population. Peer pressure can begin to impact choices of friends, clothes, clubs and activities, as well as overall behavior. Self-confidence may be replaced by the need to fit in.

PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT IS KEY
Struggles and battles between sixth-graders and their parents occur over just about anything, such as clothes, friends, activities and study habits. To keep changes manageable and balanced, administrators, teachers and counselors agree that parental involvement remains critical to a child’s success. Parents should be prepared to be more involved in the day-to-day life of their new middle-schooler, given the complexity of the coursework and their environment.

Officials offer several pointers for parents that aim to ensure academic success:
• Check the student planner daily and contact the teacher/guidance counselor if questions arise.
• Create a quiet homework/study routine – include a good dictionary and thesaurus to assist with assignments.
• If you don’t have a computer, check out Internet access at your local library.
• Closely monitor social interactions (this can be overwhelmingly important for middle-school students).
• Maintain open communication with kids – with all the changes confronting them, a talk with a compassionate adult can help ease stress.
• Encourage responsibility – teachers and administrators expect it.
• Keep lots of high-energy, low-fat snacks available.
• Seek out strong role models, especially for girls, who may begin to show decreased self-confidence.
• Teach your child how to manage stress.


ON TO HIGH SCHOOL

Feeling as though they’ve mastered middle school, some students entering ninth grade may find this transition easier to handle, but some may not.
Incoming freshmen may be facing a large school with a diverse population for the first time. Big schools can offer a greater variety of activities and experiences. However, large schools also can cause students to feel more like spectators.
Academically marginal teens can get lost more easily in larger schools and increase the potential for dropping out. To stimulate intellectual growth, new ninth-graders may find innovative teaching methods employed by area high schools.
For example, the Link Program at James Wood High School in Frederick County, Va., uses a team of three teachers, representing earth science, English and social studies. They work with a group of students during the ninth-grade year, during which the students receive close supervision and interdisciplinary instruction.
“For instance, we’ll use ‘Jurassic Park’ as a unit that will incorporate earth sciences, English and social studies,” said Fran Jefferies, director of middle and secondary instruction for Frederick County, Va., Public Schools. “It’s a good transition tool for us.”
Jefferies adds that students “need to adjust” to the differences between middle and high school. Students “work with guidance counselors to better adapt to such changes as new class schedules (90 minutes per class in high school vs. 47 minutes in middle school) and the concept of earning credits toward grade promotion vs. simply receiving a passing course grade.”

Other academic expectations facing new ninth-graders can include:
• Creating your own schedule by selecting and scheduling courses each year to meet expected academic requirements.
• More complex course curriculum resulting in increased quality and quantity of homework.
• Class projects that will require more planning and research reports that will NOT be able to wait until the night before.

Susan Starsinic, a counselor at South Hagerstown High School in Hagerstown, adds that “in high school, students are expected to know what they need and let teachers and counselors know. All of the resources and support they had in lower grades is there, but more and more they are expected to be the ones to know when they need (help) and to self-advocate.”
When asked about some nonacademic challenges facing ninth-graders, Starsinic says, “Being in some classes, the hallways and the cafeteria with the older kids is new to them. There is a huge gap in the maturity level from grade nine to grade 12 and this can be intimidating to some students and may spur others to act up in an effort to fit in. This usually calms down soon into the semester, but it can be a problem if a student makes a poor choice for a role model. Self-responsibility and more mature handling of social conflict are new to many incoming freshmen. However, by the end of ninth grade, I usually see lots of growth and lots of kids who ‘get it’.”
The physical, emotional and social aspects of a ninth-grader’s life can seem overwhelming.
In Washington County, Md., public high schools, each ninth-grader is enrolled in Success Skills, a course designed to provide a positive transition to high school, and to promote social and academic skills and positive habits.
Other challenges that parents and ninth-graders could confront include:
• Academic failure. What’s behind this poor performance? Is it simply a case of disinterest or self-discipline? Is your child preoccupied by some trouble at school with other kids? Is he dating? Are drugs involved?
• Eating disorders. Too much food or not enough – both can dramatically impact physical and psychological conditions, primarily in girls.
• Teen sex. Your teen has learned the basics and likely knows friends or acquaintances who are having sex. Perhaps he is, too. In high school, your child will make friends with older kids and peer pressure to “do it and fit in” will increase. Your child may be among his peers who are not having sex. But the topic will be prevalent in thoughts and discussions.
• Your teen’s view of her world will settle on the friends she has around her. New friends forged in this new, more diverse student body may replace friendships she developed in middle school. Friendships cultivated during her freshman year may be more lasting and intimate than ones previously enjoyed.
• The time of greatest rebellion for most teenagers begins at the beginning of high school. This new independence can take many forms, almost all of which are designed to show you that he’s a distinct individual – stretching the limits of his parental influence. This may be a short-lived streak - or not.

TRANSITIONAL PROGRAMS
School systems offer a variety of transitional meetings and creative activities designed to familiarize students and parents with many of the challenges expected in middle and high school. Each school system structures these programs differently.
Programs usually begin in the early spring with an on-site visit and carry into the summer prior to school so student concerns are reduced.
Sharon Boettinger, supervisor of counseling and student support for Frederick County Md., Public Schools, says their counselors “organize these transitions.” Counselors visit elementary schools to register students for middle school, participate in a move-up day and plan an orientation program in the summer prior to the beginning of the new school year.

A host of fun and informative programs designed to demystify high school are employed by area school systems, such as summer camp academies and freshman academy programs.
Look for orientations to begin in the early spring of eighth grade. Most counselors agree that the most successful programs include on-site classroom visits to the high school.
To find out more about transition programs in your area, contact either the school your child will attend or get on the Web site of your local school system.

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