Where freshmen stand alone

Here, instead of being thrown into the hectic melee of high school life, teens walk the hallways among peers their own age. Teachers, accustomed to juggling classwork for several grades, can focus on the unique needs of students who are making their way from the city’s much smaller lower schools to its vast high school.

The original intent of the academy was purely practical: The district needed someplace to keep its freshman class during a two-year, $125 million renovation at Cambridge Rindge and Latin, the city’s only high school.

But the temporary separation has had some unintended benefits, helping students from across the city to bond more quickly than they might have in a much larger setting and giving administrators ideas about how better to ease the transition into high school.

“The freshman year is one of the most important for student achievement, because it’s a make-it-or-break-it year,’’ said the high school principal, Christopher Saheed. “The teachers are better able to develop models for teaching for this particular group and create models for achievement for each student.’’

Opinions differ, however, among ninth-graders about how well the separation is working.

“It’s great here,’’ said 14-year-old Kevin Xiong, pausing during lunch in the former Longfellow school building, where the academy is located. “Everyone gets along. Everyone is closer.’’

School officials acknowledge the ninth-grade campus is not perfect.

Freshmen have to trek five blocks to the main campus for advanced classes. And they miss out on the interaction - good or bad - with the 1,200 upperclassmen.

“It’s freshmen, freshmen, freshmen all the time here,’’ Daphne Liao said. “I don’t like it.’’

But as Cambridge debates how to strengthen its troubled middle grades and discusses the possibility of creating a middle school, the ninth-grade academy is serving as an impromptu experiment about what works best for students on the cusp of high school.

“The administration and staff all agree that this is a unique opportunity,’’ said Allan Gehant, dean of the ninth-grade campus. “There’s a whole lot of growth that happens in the ninth year, and it’s a real opportunity to shape them together as a cohort.’’

Superintendent Jeffrey Young said that teachers and staff at the ninth-grade academy have been offering him a “rich reservoir’’ of insight as he prepares to release his list of recommendations of middle-grade improvements to the School Committee in February.

“Their observations and ideas will inform my own thinking’’ about the best approach to boosting the middle grades, Young said.

The School Committee is expected to vote on his findings in April.

Cambridge’s public school system is not structured like that of many other cities. It has one high school and no middle school. Younger students attend a dozen so-called elementary schools, which serve students through Grade 8.

And every fall, eighth-grade graduates haul their heavy backpacks and their worries to high school.

For youngsters, any educational transition is tough enough. But Rindge is gigantic - roughly a half-million square feet. It looks like a college campus with spacious views, brick walkways, and a gleaming, newly renovated public library on its front lawn.

Add to that other challenges for freshmen - meeting new friends, making decent grades, fitting in - and it can be a traumatic year.

For many ninth-graders, the small Longfellow building serves as a reprieve before they move to the main campus next year. A new group of ninth-graders will take classes in the Longfellow building next fall.

“I think it’s better like this,’’ said freshman Kimberly Skelton. “A lot of us went to different elementary schools, so to meet each other as freshmen here, it’s made us become better friends.’’

But Kylie Correia, 14, said she is missing out on a crucial moment in her high school education.

“It’s a giant eighth grade, is what this feels like to me,’’ Correia said. “I want to feel like I’m in high school - not like I’m repeating the eighth grade.’’

Kelly Buckley, who has taught at Rindge and Latin for three years, said teachers like the small-school setting.

They have more time to collaborate on projects and focus on the students who need help. Rindge students also help mentor the newcomers, she said.

“We had a faculty meeting [recently] and we had every student’s name printed out,’’ Buckley said. “We were able to give them an accolade and express concern. In a huge school we can’t do that. . . . It just feels like a smaller school.’’

Some freshmen like the cozy feeling a small school brings, too, but they worry about next year when they have to leave.

“When we get to the main campus next year it will different for us,’’ said Koby Shafer-Schweig, pausing during Buckley’s class recently. “It will be like another freshman year all over again.’’

Meghan E. Irons can be reached at mirons@globe.com