Isolating 9th graders: Separate schools ease the academic and social transition for high school-bound students

School Administrator, March, 2002 by Jennifer Newton Reents

The Cache County school board did not want to build a facility for just one grade. "The idea was to take the programs developed in the 9th-grade schools and continue them in a combined 8/9 school," Liechty says.

The Cache County district now has 12 elementary schools, four 6th/7th-grade middle schools, two 8th/9th-grade middle schools and two high schools.

About a year ago in a suburb of Rochester, N.Y., the Rush-Henrietta Central School District renovated a former junior high school building that was being used for office space into the Rush-Henrietta Ninth Grade Academy.

Like some of these districts, Rush-Henrietta was faced with a space crunch at its high school.

"Each class size was about 400," says Kenneth Graham, superintendent of the 6,000-student district. "This was too much to handle in one building. Rather than open a new high school, the decision was made to break off the 9"' grade into a separate facility."

During the planning process for the academy, the district soon began striving to create an environment that addressed the unique needs of 9"' graders, Graham says. The Ninth Grade Academy, with its 400 students, is located on its own campus about a half-mile from the senior high school.

The 9th-grade center in the Downingtown, Pa., Area School District is considered a temporary solution to overcrowding. But it has been a successful temporary solution for the last four years. Downingtown Superintendent Dan Collins says the center, with its 750 students, was intended to only be open for two years while the district built a second high school slated to open this fall.

"Our construction plans have not moved on a timely basis and the board decided they did not want to have students and teachers in a building under construction. Thus our two-year construction plan has stretched to four years," he says.

"The greatest benefit has been the ability to isolate 9th-grade students without the pressures of older students being placed upon them," says Collins. "We had many parents express concern about the isolation prior to the opening of the building, but parents now rave about the program. I wish we could maintain it next year, but politically that is not possible. The greatest factor in making it work is that we have an excellent principal in the building who was able to unite the staff."

Selling the Program

The development of a 9th-grade center, however, is only one aspect of transition from middle school to high school, says Slippery Rock University's Hertzog.

"School districts need to develop a program that begins in the fall of the 8th grade year and continues through until at least the spring of the 9th-grade year. Part of this process is the development of the 9th-grade center," he says.

When developing a transition program between middle school and high school, a school district needs to find a dedicated faculty that is willing to teach only 9th graders. The teachers should look at assignments and agree on policies and procedures for turning in assignments, taking tests, etc. This, Herzog says, will provide the 9th-grade students with some concrete guidelines across the curriculum and help them stay organized.