High School Transition Essay

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Overall, the transition activities do a fair job preparing students and their parents/guardians for the transition to high school. Students surveyed gave the transition an average score of 6.72, on a scale from 1 to 10, at preparing students for high school. Stakeholders had mixed feedback about the preparedness of students for the academic, procedural, and social aspects of the transition.
The academic area was of the greatest concern given the feedback from stakeholders. Both parents and students scored high percentages of not prepared and somewhat prepared. Stakeholders commented regarding the need for the middle school to be more rigorous in eighth grade. An interesting assessment of eighth grade given the outrageously high GPAs of eighth grade students indicated in Chapter 1. Stakeholder feedback indicates that there is a disconnect between the amount of work required in eighth and ninth grades. Therefore, there is the need for core content area teachers to participate in vertical alignment between the middle and high school of not just curricular needs but also academic expectations including homework and rigor. Stakeholders also agreed that more education about course leveling, …show more content…

While both parents and students scored the procedural concerns the highest prior to the start of school, the transition activities mitigated these concerns. Students often sighted the ability to go from class to class to “find their own path” helped them feel more comfortable starting high school. The procedural components appear to be the easiest to include during the orientation program, since it allows students to learn about the day-to-day aspects of the high school with minimal financial impact to the district. WHS’s orientations include the key procedural aspects indicated by the research of Cauley and Jovanovich

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