Parkway North Issues New Procedures for Freshmen

Every year, freshmen walk into North High wondering what they are doing here. Transitioning from middle school to high school is difficult, but this year, the administrators, faculty, and staff at North have decided to take action to help freshmen transition better by starting a new program during academic lab.

“We were noticing that students coming into school, in general, were lacking skills [on how] to be a student. Nobody’s really taught these kids how to be a student without deliberately having lessons and plans on how to do it. We figured that now is a good time to learn it because the more you learn how to be a student, study, take notes, things like that, the more it’s going to affect all your schooling and all subject areas,” said ninth grade principal Greg Wagener.

During the first priority of the first academic lab each week, the freshmen will go through lessons inspired by the book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens by Sean Covey, to learn what it takes to be a successful high school students. The lessons will take place throughout the year with hopes of having a lasting affect the student’s high school careers.

Ninth grade counselor Anne Kraus said, “The purpose is to teach them organization, executive functioning, and skills that they will need throughout their lives that we noticed some students were lacking as they graduated high school, so we wanted to start them off early.”

Since most new freshmen do not know the school to well, some think academic lab should be seen as a time to get used to the school, teachers, other students, and the overall environment. Their priority time being reduced from 60 minutes to 30 once a week could affect some of the freshmen.

“It might disrupt their travel time a little bit, but hopefully it will teach them skills so that the loss of time won’t be that big of a deal,” said history teacher Andrew Rudolph.

Even though most freshmen know why this is happening, some feel as if the new skills procedures closely resemble the family group meetings that they had to do in the seventh and eighth grade at Northeast Middle School.

Freshman Vincent Xu said, “Honestly, I think it’s [for] the same reason family groups [at Northeast Middle] is happening. The school feels that students need to be taught how to deal with high school. They don’t want students to be left behind.”

Freshman Tayler Dewey said, “Nobody is going to care about this. They already taught us this in elementary and middle school. Nobody listened the first time, so I doubt anyone is going to listen again.”

Even though most students are hearing the lessons for the second time, the administrators, faculty, and staff feel the lessons are essential for their future as students of North High and beyond high school.

“The hope is that this affect them so they can use their lab time in the future much more productively than we’ve seen students use it in the past, as well as help them sharpen skills that they will need beyond high school,” said Kraus.

If the lessons are effective, the school will continue teaching the lessons to next year’s incoming freshmen.

Xu said, “For next year’s freshmen, honestly I don’t think what they are doing is that big of a problem. As long as it doesn’t last too long and doesn’t affect our school lives that much. If they do this next year, it wouldn’t be a bad idea.”

The freshmen are taking in many new essential skills this year. Overall, the lessons are meant to affect them most of on the mental side.

Wagener said, “I think the biggest lesson is that everyday matters: setting goals and knowing what you’re moving toward before you start working toward it.”

by Ijeoma Nkenchor, Marketing Genius