Green Bay Area Public School District building. (IMAGE: Courtesy of Fox 11 WLUK)
GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — The Green Bay Area Public School District is implementing a series of new changes for incoming freshmen in an effort to enhance the high school learning experience and tackle the issue of declining attendance.
“We have to look at everything in high school that’s working, we have to look at things in high school that are barriers to our students having that kind of success, and the focus came to ninth grade,” says GBAPS Associate Superintendent of Continuous Improvement, David Johns.
Johns says the new changes to the school day for incoming freshmen are being made to ease them into their high school experience and ultimately, adulthood.
The first change is what will be referred to as ‘pods,’ which essentially means students will be divided up.
“We’ll be scheduling our ninth graders into smaller learning communities; they’ll be tight teams of students who have the same four academic teachers who get to know them well and help them develop a sense of belonging in their school,” says Johns.
Principals like Courtney Kuehns at Preble High School say stepping into a giant high school from a much smaller middle school experience can be overwhelming. This change should help ease the transition.
“Instead of having all different students within all their classes, within their core classes, they’re going to have some students that are the same,” she says. “The team of teachers will have the same group of students to really help break down conversations around access points for curriculum and content, and talk more specifically about student supports and needs, and also have more students in common throughout their day so they can get more comfortable earlier on in their learning.”
The ‘pods,’ or ‘hives,’ as they’re called at Preble, are intended to help students start off their high school years with strong connections.
The next change is perhaps the biggest. Freshmen students will no longer have an open lunch hour. Meaning, they can’t leave the school grounds like the rest of the high schoolers do.
“Sometimes students who are 13, 14 coming into high school haven’t really mastered that soft skill of time management,” Kuehn says.
Kuehn has witnessed the post-lunch attendance rates firsthand.
“So what we would sometimes see is being able to have the flexibility during their day [but] not having the means to monitor their time, they would come back late and sometimes come back not at all.”
“Instead of thinking about things, like open campus for lunch, as just the way we’ve always done it, we’re choosing to take a look at it as more of a privilege you earn throughout the high school experience as we prepare you for life after school and into adulthood,” says Johns about the change. “Just like so many other things in adult life, there are privileges and opportunities that come based on things you’re demonstrating.”
“For our ninth-grade students to progress, be successful in high school, show that you can attend on time, show that you can get to your classes on time, that you can be successful in your coursework, and certain privileges will open for you,” Johns adds.
In the future, those lunch periods may be shortened to 30 minutes instead of an hour, but for this year, leaders say the hour-long in-house lunch will offer new experiences for freshmen.
“It is another opportunity if they want to access our building, we have our library open during lunch, so there’s a lot of support we can provide there, we have our math lab open during lunch, just collaboration time with student services and with different coaches and advisors who might be available on site,” Kuehn says.
“They need that time to be able to eat a sandwich, walk out the door, sit on a cement wall and talk to friends outdoors in the fresh air, we’re still going to provide that for our 9th grade students, and even more so now that they’ll be in areas close by the school,” Johns adds, recognizing that a break in the day is still crucial to the learning environment.
Leaders know that the changes, especially the closed-campus lunch change, isn’t wildly popular.
“I will say there were some groans, like ‘what? I can’t leave?” says Kuehns, referring to when she told the Preble feeder-school middle school students about the upcoming changes.
“I mean, there’s no doubt that if we were to poll students right now on the appeal, definitely of the lunch time change, our 9th graders would not be terribly excited about that. We continue to trust in the school communities, we have a phenomenal food and nutrition program, we’re going to have amazing experiences for our ninth-grade students,” John says.
Both leaders are confident that students will see the plus sides of the change.
“But really I think what’s going to make it a success from the students’ perspective is the environment we create. So another component for our hive structure is we’re intentionally going to have our teams create engaging activities, competitions between the five teams we have, and to get feedback from our students, what do they find enjoyable, and how can we foster that.”
“Hopefully they’ll feel like, hey, this actually isn’t so bad, and now because I was kind of forced to not maybe be out for lunch, this happened in my school, and I’m really excited for this and connected to this,” she adds.
So, how will they measure the success of these changes?
Johns says the district has an overall student profile called ‘on track to graduate,’ which is made up of a series of data points:
- ‘Persistently present’ in school, which tracks absences and tardies
- Tracking if students are passing their classes the first time they’re taking them
- Ensuring students are enrolled in classes for the next year that are in the proper sequence
“That’s really what we’ll be paying attention to, what percent of our freshman class are on track to graduate relative to years past,” Johns says.
“And particularly because we’re taking some steps to keep them in the building, keep them with a tighter group of teachers, create a stronger bond and sense of community between them and teachers and the school at large, and move them into that sophomore year with greater confidence and success.”
Kuehn shared what her ultimate hope for the changes will be for her students.
“It’s connection to school, getting involved in school, and feeling a sense of pride in school.”
The district adds that there are other structural school-day changes they’re looking at in order to foster an even better learning environment for students, too.
“Most people are aware that there’s highly convincing research to suggest that the later we can start school for high school students, the more it aligns with their brain chemistry, their body chemistry, and their ability to learn and be successful. not in this upcoming year, but in the year that follows, we’ll definitely be looking at a school day that nudges toward a later start for our students.”
Johns says the district is still working out the logistics of that potential scenario.
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