On Aug. 14, hundreds of freshmen entered Windsor High School with smiles, nervous faces and curiosity. What did the year have in store for them and how would the transition to high school go?
This year the school introduced a new club called Link Crew. The point of this club is to introduce the incoming freshmen into high school and to make the transition between middle and high school smoother.
Jessica Teal (staff) — co-sponsor of Link Crew with Cammie Smith (staff) — explained how this new club welcomed the freshmen into high school: “A lot are really eager to meet (the link leaders), because they had already called the night before to welcome them personally over the phone to come to the next day for orientation. And so welcoming them … created that personal connection. So they heard a a voice and they would see a face that’s familiar.”
Teal continues to push this connection between the link leaders and the students during advisory. She believes that the connection and a friendly smile can change freshmen’s impression and feelings about high school.
Griffen Dechairo (09), expressed his thoughts on first impressions of the people he has met in high school so far: “Honestly people were much nicer than I expected. They are completely open.”
Reid Harrison (09) shared similar feelings about his impression of high school students. “I thought it was going to be scary,” Harrison said, who no longer feels this way. Another change he noticed is that “classes are mixed around like a lot more, like, you have to walk further to each class.”
Students’ involvement in extracurricular activities is one of the main ways that freshmen can be welcomed into the school. Dechairo shared that his involvement in the boys soccer team helped him feel connected throughout the school: “I would say people on my soccer team have always been there, like ‘Oh make sure you have a jersey on, oh nice, you’re looking good’ stuff like that,” Dechairo said.
Teal wants the Link Leaders to continue to push the freshmen to join and support the extracurricular activities at high school.
“For freshmen to encourage them to go to athletic events, but also to support the arts. And thinking about, how do they get involved in band and orchestra and choir? How they can also get involved in athletics?” Teal said.
Even though extracurricular activities are a great way to get involved with the school, in-class experiences are even more crucial.
Some students’ first impressions of high school classes have been positive. “The teachers are really good here and I never really had too difficult classes or too easy where I feel like I’m doing nothing,” Dechairo said.
Other students are having a more difficult time adjusting to the different kinds of classes. “There’s just a lot of work. I don’t know if I can keep up with everything,” Harrison said.
Link Crew has been successful so far this year but the club is looking for new ways to improve for next year, and Dechairo had some advice: “I feel like they did pretty well, maybe just spend more time learning the teachers in one day. Instead … have like 20 minutes in each class instead of having 10 minutes.”
Teal also has some ideas on how to improve Link Crew this year and going into next year. “Ms. Smith and I, we are planning to maybe do a full week of training where we break up the days even more so that way we can have more time to dive into those activities … But even with that, you need more time to practice and really coach and give feedback to your leaders when they’re actually going to then implement the activity, so we’re gonna expand our training for next year.”
