Focus on Freshmen

In the summer of 2003, Emilio Urioste, principal of John Burroughs High School in Burbank, California, was preparing to move his faculty and students back into their newly renovated building. Having done a lot of reading on the importance of ninth graders' often difficult transition to high school, Urioste dedicated the building’s second floor to ninth grade classes. That entire floor is now where ninth graders take 95 percent of their classes. This way, beginning high school with the comforting sense of being together with others “in the same boat,” ninth graders are able to integrate slowly into the whole school, facilitating the often intimidating process of adjusting to the new and unfamiliar. Their contact with the upper grade students is minimal for the first-year.

The goal is to make the ninth grade experience nurturing and have students take ownership of their own space. The halls of the second floor are lined with display cases for student work and announcements. The ninth grade teachers stand at the stairwells and in the hallways during passing period, to interact with students and enforce behavior expectations. In addition to nurturing the new students, this physical change has also helped the ninth grade teachers come together. They have now established common behavior and homework expectations, down to such particulars as a common heading format on all papers.

Since the initiation of the ninth-grade floor, there has been a reduction in the number of ninth-graders' disciplinary infractions compared to previous years. There has been no vandalism or graffiti to the second floor of the new building. As Urioste mentions, this change did not take any extra money, just a change in focus. He states, “We worked with what we had, and it’s paying off in a smoother transition.”

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