Schools Ease Transition to High School

Dani McClain:

The transition to high school made Kayla Owens nervous.

Entering high school, I was getting ready for another step in my life: harder work, a different mind-set, different people.

She had been one of the older students at Hartford University School, a kindergarten through eighth-grade program on the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee campus, and didn't know what to expect at the all-girls Catholic school where she was headed.

"I was getting ready for another step in my life: harder work, a different mind-set, different people," said Owens, now a junior at St. Joan Antida High School.

This fall, the high school will launch a new program aimed at helping its first-year students - who come from dozens of feeder schools around the city - identify with their new school and get on the college prep path. The yearlong program will assign a team of teachers to work with ninth-graders on study skills and will try to get their parents involved from day one.

Many of the school's first-year students need early academic intervention, said Elizabeth Stengel, St. Joan Antida's admissions officer.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at April 14, 2008 7:33 PM
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