Melissa Bailey Photo
When guidance counselor Brian Flanagan met his caseload of 333 freshmen on the first day of school at Wilbur Cross, he found many of them at his door, still struggling with mismatched schedules.
Flanagan (pictured) and a team of guidance counselors floated a solution to that problem as they unveiled a plan aimed at easing the transition between 8th and 9th grades.
The team, led by citywide guidance supervisor Dolores Garcia-Blocker, presented their ideas this week to the Board of Education.
Garcia-Blocker and 14 guidance counselors created a plan to address the transition from middle to high school, which many kids find difficult.
They began by passing out a survey to the school system’s 8th graders. About half of the 1,200-plus 8th-graders responded to questions about their concerns and expectations for high school — and what teachers and counselors can do to help.
Concerns included “getting lost,” “fitting in,” having to choose clothes instead of wear a uniform, and having the right schedule.
Flanagan, the guidance counselor assigned to Cross’ Freshman Academy, said that despite the planning over the summer, many freshmen at the beginning of school reported they were in the wrong level of classes.
The problem was a systemic one, said Garcia-Blocker (pictured): “None of the schools have the information they need to schedule kids.”
Some 8th-graders on their way to some magnet high schools take placement tests before freshman year, but most don’t, she said. The two comprehensive high schools, Wilbur Cross and James Hillhouse, don’t have a good way to test kids’ abilities.
Middle school guidance counselors keep files on their students, but the freshman guidance counselors don’t get those files with their students’ histories until an October “file swap,” when all the middle and high school guidance counselors stand in one room and exchange files with each other.
The guidance group proposed streamlining that process so that freshmen can find the right academic fit.
Flanagan said all 8th graders should take a placement test in math, English, science and foreign language to determine where they should be placed in high school.
In addition, 8th grade teachers should make recommendations about where their students should be placed and load them into a central computer system — so that 9th grade guidance counselors can read those recommendations when they put together freshman schedules. The group proposes mailing those placement recommendations to parents by June 1, so that parents have time to discuss them.
Magnet schools like the Cooperative Arts Magnet High School, where Garcia-Blocker used to serve as principal, already had the luxury of knowing who their kids are in the spring, and testing their abilities through placement exams. She said the new system should help other schools access more information to help them plan the school year.
Flanagan also proposed several steps to help kids keep up in school. The group proposed creating a new middle school homework policy so that the amount of homework “scaffolds” from grades 6, 7, 8 to 9 instead of leaping up dramatically from 8 to 9.
He also called for an 8th grade seminar focusing on the 8th to 9th grade transition, as well as a study skills class in middle school that would prepare kids for the independence needed to survive high school.
Debbie Bartone, a guidance counselor at Mauro-Sheridan Magnet School, focused on the social piece of the transition at the presentation to the school board, which took place Monday evening.
“Eighth-graders have a lot of trepidation about going to high school,” she said.
She proposed putting together a “high school symposium” where 8th graders could learn from 9th graders who graduated from their middle school about what high school is like.
All freshmen should have the chance to tour the high school in small groups of students from the middle school they came from before the first day of school, Bartone suggested. And freshmen should show up to school one day earlier so they can fix their schedules, get their lockers, meet their teachers, and learn how to go through metal detectors — all things that provide obstacles on Day One.
Bartone also proposed setting up one-on-one meetings with students, parents and guidance counselors over the summer before school starts. Once they get into school, freshmen should have a upperclassman “buddy” to help them navigate the new academic and social world of high school.
Jennifer Hawley (pictured), a guidance counselor at Hill Regional Career High School, focused on students’ “career domain.”
Parents are not informed about which high school would best fit their child, she said. They often make “poor choices” about where to send their kids — without consulting the 8th graders in the process.
Parents don’t attend open houses at high schools, and don’t bring their kids to high schools to get a sense of what they’re like, Hawley reported. She proposed holding a “parent panel” about high school options; posting infomercials about the high schools on the district website; and making 8th graders research high school options as a homework assignment.
Board members took notes on the presentation and asked questions at the end.
“No money,” responded schools Superintendent Reggie Mayo in a jokingly ominous voice upon hearing their recommendations.
Garcia-Blocker replied that most of the recommendations wouldn’t cost anything.
In seriousness, Mayo said some schools are already doing parts of what the group is recommended — John C. Daniels, for example, has a study skills course — but the initiatives are not spread throughout the district.
He suggested the group run the recommendations by school principals for more input.
Board member Alex Johnston applauded the group for the “honesty” with which it approached the problem at hand, and for the recommendations it came up with.
“Some of these ideas are so fundamental to student success,” he said. “The fact that we are not doing them now is a barrier to their success.”
Are we really advocating for more testing? Eighth Graders already take quarterly exams in Math, Science, English and Social Studies. These exams are mandated by the curriculum. Either these tests are not up to the task of placement, meaning they are in serious need of revision, or they are up to the task and should be used for that purpose. In either case there is no need for an additional test.
If indeed the comprehensive High Schools have no means of assessing student abilities, then it should call into serious question the work going on in our middle schools. To put it another way, if we can't trust the recommendation of eighth grade teachers and guidance counselors to both matter and arrive at the high school in a timely fashion, then something needs to change about eighth grade.
Moreover, while I can understand the difficulty that Guidance Counselors have placing students in courses in Magnet Schools (where kids can come from 20 different districts), there is simply no excuse for students moving from one New Haven School to another to arrive a month before their data.
It seems to me that students have every right to be concerned about "getting lost" when the system can't find a way to get their information from one building to the next and the work they do in eight grade matters so little to their placement in high school.