This year, Concord staff has created a new program for freshman classes. This introduced a teaching team to help freshmen transfer from a middle to high school environment. This new program helps students get help from teachers, get more credits, and open more opportunities for the future. This also splits two of the students’ classes in half; instead of one 90-minute class, it splits into two 45-minute classes. This, unfortunately, cuts teaching short and gives less time for students to progress in their work. 

One of the teachers impacted by this is Mrs. Fiero, who teaches Biology to the freshmen. She splits this class time with Ms. Fields, who teaches Algebra. They worked out a plan together to help the students succeed. The system is run with A and B days. For example, on A days, students will go to the class they were supposed to go to for the first half, and on B days, students go to the class they were supposed to go to for the second half. Although five days in the week make the class time uneven, on Wednesday, all freshman students meet in the media center for group work to balance this out. Another teacher, Mrs. Couling, teaches freshman English and splits her time with Mr. Simmons, who teaches World History for the freshman. They split the 90 minutes into two 45-minute classes, the students alternating classrooms in between. 

Mathon Makenzie, a freshman, shares that he thinks the teaching team is a good thing. He believes it benefits the students because all of the teachers coordinate their topics and know how to help the students. He also believes that the teaching team could adjust slightly for the next year’s freshmen to benefit them even more. He shares, “They should work together more to make it so we are learning stuff consistently, instead of one topic in one class and another topic in a different class.” This could be more beneficial and could help students remember the information from each class if all classes are teaching the same topics that relate to each other. 

Mrs. Fiero adds, “Freshmen have a difficult transition into high school, usually. The team aspect relieves some of the stress of this. That was they are not thrown to the wolves and know there is a team of people dedicated to helping them succeed.” Although this program is beneficial, Mrs. Fiero believes that some improvements could be made to the program for next year’s students: “I would love for the team to pair lessons a bit more going into next year. I think we could collaborate a lot more to really make our lessons flow from class to class.” She wants this to include not only core classes but also elective teachers. 

Allie Morris, an honors English and Geometry freshman, shares her opinion about the teaching program: “I think it would be more beneficial to have each class every day. This would keep students on a more regular schedule without them being constantly switched around.”

Due to the lack of honor students in the freshman class, students who are in honors and advanced courses have to be in the regular classes. Normally, honors students would have their class so they can focus specifically on advanced work; this puts these students at a disadvantage and decreases their likelihood of being prepared for the honors classes in the future. 

While this program does help freshman students, these adjustments could make this even more beneficial for future students and increase their likelihood of getting into advanced classes and being prepared for next year.