New program helps Housatonic keep freshmen on solid track

FALLS VILLAGE — New this year at Housatonic Valley Regional High School is a freshman transition program that faculty and administrators hope will make it easier for students to adjust to high school, keep track of their academic work, and encourage students to think in the long term — 10 years — and not just to the next exam or marking period.

All freshmen are assigned to one of eight “cohort groups� and meet Monday mornings during the period known as the activity block.

Each group has a teacher, a backup teacher and a peer mentor — an upperclassman who works with the freshmen. Coordinating the effort are Jacquie Rice (math), Leigh Colavecchio (English) and Karen Prince (guidance).

On Monday, Sept. 13, the students in all the groups were working on a lesson titled “Envisioning Your Future.�

The lesson used Barack Obama as an example of someone with a vision — to become president — who made it a reality.

In Pam Shillingford’s class the students were asked to put themselves in the shoes of a ninth-grade Obama. They concluded that while he probably daydreamed about being president, his immediate goal as a freshman was a practical one: to graduate from high school.

In John Duval’s group, students went into the difference between a daydream and a vision.

Ana Horowitz summed it up neatly: “A vision is focused, productive. A daydream is thinking about unicorns or jumping over pots of gold. It’s not very productive.�

So how did the president get where he is?

Answer: He worked at it, and he had a plan.

And the planning part is ultimately what the Freshman Seminar program is about.

The freshmen are asked to agree to four things: To give their best effort, all the time; to keep an open mind and to learn from each other; to listen actively and respond appropriately; and to have fun.

The teachers in the cohort groups — all of whom are volunteers and receive no extra pay — provide the freshmen with their own stories, of goals achieved and abandoned, of successes and disappointments. Members of the larger Region One community will be invited to share their experiences later in the year.

The peer mentors all volunteered as well — and had to get through an interview.

Working concurrently with the freshman program is what’s known as the Ninth-grade Team — faculty, guidance and administrators who look at the records of the incoming students to check if they have been placed properly and to look for indications that a student may be at risk.

Rice, who is a seminar teacher and is involved with the Ninth-grade Team as well, said that of this year’s incoming group of 123 freshmen, about 20 were identified as being at risk for something — often indicated by a history of absences or tardiness in elementary and middle school.

The team is not a counseling group, Rice added. It identifies students with potential difficulties and makes referrals to other departments.

Remedies include tutoring and the “learning lab,� which has been taken over this year by English Department Chairman Damon Osora.

Rice said that last year the number of “flagged� students varied at different times during the year, but by the end of the school year there were only a handful left. Most had been referred to the appropriate agencies or departments for assistance.

In the back of everyone’s mind is an article that appeared last winter in the student newspaper (and included in the Feb. 18 edition of The Lakeville Journal).

That piece began by stating that 41 percent of Housatonic freshmen were “failing or receiving below-average� grades in the first semester.

Rice and Assistant Superintendent Diane Goncalves said the 41-percent figure was skewed heavily by truancies and by students who began the year in the hole for failing to complete summer reading assignments.

But even at half the number, it would be alarming.

Which is why the people involved in the Freshman Seminar and the Ninth-grade Team seem as anxious to see the first report cards as are the students.

“Those midterm grades can be used as a warning� by teachers for students who are stumbling out of the gate, Goncalves said.

And they can indicate that perhaps a student should be in a different level in one subject.

All of which seems obvious, but what makes this year different is the attention being paid.

“We are trying to keep as many doors open as possible,� said Rice.

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