Some tips from the top for starting high school
As principal of a well-regarded high school in one of the state's wealthiest suburbs, Michael J. Welch has seen all manner of freshmen walk through the doors of Newton South High School: the scared, the defiant, the shy, the stressed.
Welch has a message for them.
"Don't get overly anxious," he said. "Everything's going to be OK."
As he shuttles nearly every week this summer to "parent coffees" with the moms and dads of incoming ninth-graders, Welch dispenses advice about freshman year. Parents are jittery because they want to ensure that their teenager feels welcome at school. The soon-to-be freshmen are anxious because of the size of high school and the tougher workload. The usual fears abound, from getting lost to getting beaten up.
Statistically, freshman year is rife with pitfalls. More Massachusetts students get suspended, expelled, or held back in ninth grade than any other year, state figures show. Schools across the nation have created "freshman academies" and hired extra guidance counselors to give ninth-graders extra attention. Salem High School, for example, is breaking its freshman class into four teams of 88 students, with teachers assigned to each team, said Tim Ruggere, the school's new dean of freshmen.
Welch offers these tips:
Freshmen may feel awkward doing it, but should get to know their teachers, perhaps through after-school meetings.
Freshmen should join clubs, but also attend school games, plays, or concerts to make them feel connected to school.
The summer before high school, parents should talk to their children about their goals for the upcoming year.
"It's by asking questions that you get your kid to open up to you. When you say, 'You're going to have to study four hours a night,' that's when you get the kid slinking off in the corner and playing the Game Boy," Welch said. "You want them to be talking to you."
Welch said freshmen and their parents should not spend hours worrying about college that first year of high school.
But still be aware that freshman grades appear on high school transcripts, he said.
Salem public schools try to ease the transition by inviting eighth-graders to the 1,400-student high school, and brings in high-schoolers to address eighth-graders. But what worries some eighth-graders is something more intangible: the feeling that they must get ready for adulthood.
"College is preparing you for a job. This is like preparing you to prepare for your job," said Camille Wathne, 13, who will enter ninth grade at Salem High this fall. 