Schools Ease Transition: Special Programs Help Students Stay on Track

By Dani McClain, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Apr. 14–The transition to high school made Kayla Owens nervous.

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.

According to a course placement test the school gave this year’s ninth-graders, more than 90% fell short of a college-readiness benchmark for high school freshman in math and science, three-fourths missed the mark in reading, and just over half were below the standard in English.

This year, more than 90% of St. Joan Antida students are eligible for the free or reduced-price lunch subsidy, a poverty indicator, and more than 80% attend the school through the voucher program, which allows low-income families to use public funds to send their children to private schools.

Under the new plan, a ninth-grade teaching team will include an instructional coach charged with helping teachers address the needs of all girls in a given class — from the more advanced students to those who struggle.

“The teachers can plan better because they’ll have common students,” Stengel said. “We can adjust our schedule and our curriculum to help (students) advance.”

The fund-raising goal for the program is about $250,000, which is expected to cover the costs of hiring new staff and adopting new curriculum, said Teddi Kennedy, the school’s development director.

Messmer and Pius XI high schools, two Catholic schools with similarly high numbers of voucher students, are also ramping up efforts to get freshmen quickly on the college prep track.

About 90% of Messmer students attend through the voucher program, and the school relies on a six-week summer program called Messmer 101 to get incoming ninth-graders on the same page, said Jeff Monday, the school’s principal.

The program offers training in reading, math, study skills and science, a recent addition.

“Not only do they get the foundation related to our curriculum and academics, but they also become acculturated to our school,” Monday said. “They understand the expectations. There’s not that quarter of floundering and trying to figure that out.”

This year, for the first time, Messmer officials tested ninth-graders in reading and math in the fall and will test them again this spring to gauge their progress.

Pius XI High School offers a study skills workshop each summer to incoming ninth-graders. Last year, the school, where about a fifth of students attend through the voucher program, waived the workshop’s $80 fee for low-income students.

The school recently hosted a daylong workshop for teachers at the 70 to 80 elementary and middle schools its incoming freshmen typically come from. This year’s ninth-grade class has just over 300 students from urban and suburban schools in Milwaukee, Waukesha and Ozaukee counties, said Chris Schulteis, admissions director at Pius.

The workshops — also scheduled for principals — acknowledge that adults share responsibility in easing students’ transition.

“We’re forming some connections with them so they understand what we expect when students get here,” Schulteis said. “We’re looking at more of a K-12 approach.”

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