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Highlands Today

Freshman Foundations: Data Shows Mixed Results

Jasmina Meyer/Highlands Today

From left: Freshman Jilmiere Espada and Cedric Jackson take notes during their Algebra I class on Monday at Sebring High School.

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By MARC VALERO

Highlands Today

Published: February 3, 2009

SEBRING - Now in its third year, Freshman Foundation data shows mixed progress in improving attendance, grades and discipline, while lowering the dropout rate of the county's ninth-graders.

But students believe the Freshman Foundations helped them with the transition from middle to high school.

After their first year in 2006-07, school district data showed that the three high schools had a higher percentage of students promoted to the 10th grade.

But that percentage dropped the following year in 2007-08.

At Avon Park High, the percentage of freshmen who were promoted in 2007-08 (68.6 percent) fell below the 70.7 percent in 2005-06, a year before the Freshman Foundation started.

Lake Placid High led the district's three high schools in 2007-08 with 78.2 percent of its freshmen being promoted to 10th-grade.

Sebring High Freshman Foundation lead teacher Ilene Eshelman said comparing data from different years involves different students so it's not a true way to measure success.

"We are not going to have a good judge of how successful we are until we get our first group to graduation and then compare with the previous group as far as graduation rate, grades, discipline," she said. "Then we will be able to see how well those kids did."

The Class of 2010 will be the first class of graduates who started in the Freshman Foundation.

Avon Park High currently has 281 freshmen.

Several freshmen were promoted to the 10th grade this past week, according to freshman guidance counselor Rosemary Webb. They earned their credits and their grades or they met the school district's promotion criteria.

The students like the teen leadership class, which seems to help them integrate themselves into the school, she said.

The Freshman Foundation positives have outweighed the negatives, School Board Member J. Ned Hancock believes.

There may be more improvements with the elimination of portable classrooms at Sebring High School with its new classroom building and at Avon Park High with a new building nearing completion, he said.

"I think Lake Placid High has embraced it and has really done an outstanding job with it," Hancock said. "We just need to figure out some of the things that they're doing and see if we can do some of those same things at the other campuses."

But, students believe the Freshman Foundations helped them with the transition from middle to high school.

"It easier when it's just freshmen because you already know everybody; you're not intimidated," said Sebring High freshman Brittany Lockhart.

Sebring High freshman Roque Rodriguez said, "It made the transition from middle school to high school pretty easy. I came here knowing what's going on, so I didn't have any problems with the upperclassmen or anything."

Sebring High freshman Arianna DeArce said she didn't want to attempt any honors classes this year, but she may take some next school year.

"I just wanted to see how the regular classes were first," she said. "They are a little bit easy; I'm going to bump it up next year."

Lockhart said, "They don't baby us, but it's more like they kind of push us to where we need to be."

The school's new classroom building, which has primarily freshman classes, has helped bring the teachers together so they have a better understanding of the ninth-graders, DeArce said.

Highlands Today reporter Marc Valero can be reached at 386-5826 or mvalero@highlandstoday.com

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