Ninth graders come to CHS with unique transition characteristics. It's their first year in high school, their first time in a school with 1500 students, their first time in a building that has over a mile of hallways, their first time interacting with a student population aged 14-21, their first time working with as many as eight different teachers, etc...  View the presentation above for more detail.

Research tells us that, in education, size works against us. It doesn't matter if we are talking about the size of one classroom or the size of a school. The larger we get, the harder it is to meet and address each individual student's needs. I thought it no surprise that before she has even taken office, our new superintendent has commented on the potential need for a second high school.

Large schools are addressing this problem of size and meeting individual needs by breaking into SMALL LEARNING COMMUNITIES within the school and adding a variety of programs to increase personal attention and individualization to students.

One such small community is the use of career clusters and study majors. By working with students and grouping them by their potential future career interest, we create small communities of students with common goals. An even smaller community becomes their study major. For example, a "performing arts" major identifies with his or her fellow performing arts students while also being part of a larger "Arts and Humanities" career cluster.

This is not rocket science! Colleges have long broken themselves down into small learning communities by department and majors. I attended USC with 20,000+ students. But I was not just a Gamecock. I was an instrumental music education major in the School of Education. I identified with and my individual needs were addressed by my department and major.

Students have always migrated to small communities in large schools. They join clubs, play sports, or engage in fine arts. Studies show that students involved in extracurricular activities make better grades and have better attendance. One idea behind "Small Learning Communities" is to bring that concept to a student's academic program.

The Freshmen Institute is simply one Small Learning Community. It may be the most important. It is a way to restructure to provide more individual attention, a sense of community, and personalization to the most important year in high school.

The concept of a separate classroom wing for the freshman class is often misconstrued. The real purpose is to bring them closer together physically so we can apply resources specifically to them. Those resources will include a guidance counselor, assistant principal, and teachers for freshmen only. By breaking down into a small community in a smaller area of the school, we can best address their needs.

It's not a secret plot to keep them away from the "big, bad, upperclassmen"!  Ninth grade schedules will be integrated with upperclassmen for lunch, social activities, and many school activities. While it is true that the majority of ninth grade classes will be in the 300 wing, they will leave the area often. For example, freshmen science classes will be held in the current 100 science wing. Freshmen will "leave" the 300 wing for computer classes, ROTC, PE, fine arts, etc. The average ninth grader will not likely feel a physical difference even though s/he will not have to cover nearly as much "real estate" to go from class to class. S/he should feel a major difference in the amount of attention received.

The small communities project is the culmination of two-years of work by our School Improvement Council.  It is a national movement.  Fort Mill HS is a national model for the concepts. Rock Hill has also announced they will start the Career Cluster program next year.