03/30/2009
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Staff photo by Andy Molloy
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Staff photo by Andy Molloyfrom the Kennebec Journal
BUDGET CUTS ORDERED
Many happy returns in Richmond
Tax woes land on Whitefield
Rapist denied new trial
AUGUSTA MINDING A MINE
SPORT OF KINGS Falconry a blend of dedication and commitment
COLLEGE HOCKEY: Maine rallies but falls short against Boston College
COLLEGE ROUNDUP: Colby women win season opener at home tournament
All of today's:
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from the Kennebec Journal
from the Morning Sentinel
WEDDING BURGLAR JAILED
Youths talk Turkey Day
Plenty of free Thanksgiving meals available
Turkey prices make for happier holiday
Kennebec County Superior Court
POLICE
COLLEGE HOCKEY: Maine rallies but falls short against Boston College
COLLEGE ROUNDUP: Colby women win season opener at home tournament
All of today's:
News | Sports
from the Morning Sentinel
Staff Writer
If parents want a sneak peek of middle and high school students sharing a building, they can look at the two local school systems that use the arrangement now: Richmond and Hall-Dale.
Or, additionally, at Maranacook schools, where the middle and high schools share a campus with their buildings just a few feet apart.
When Augusta's only public middle school, Hodgkins, closes at the end of the school year, its students will attend Cony High School, prompting fears among some parents about the age difference and what middle schoolers might be exposed to by their older high school peers.
Principals and students at schools where middle and high school students share space report no more problems between middle and high school students than you might expect between students of the same age.
"By the nature of their age difference, they have different issues, but it hasn't created a problem," said Steve Lavoie, principal of Hall-Dale's attached middle school and high school. "If we get wind of high school and middle school kids in conflict, we deal with it.
"It has been a good thing, overall. The positives far outweigh the negatives."
Staff at the schools typically make an effort to keep younger and older students separate most of the time.
"We do make an attempt -- a good one, I believe -- to keep them separate," said Deborah Fisk, principal of the middle and high schools in Richmond. "They're just in a different developmental place. Some of the behaviors of 17- and 18-year-olds are not the behaviors we want people who are 13 or 14 to use. So we are very watchful about making sure our middle school kids have an opportunity to be their age, not be older."
Hall-Dale senior Wade Davis, who tutors sixth-grade students in mathematics with other members of the high school's National Honor Society, said that, when he entered sixth grade at Hall-Dale, his classmates and he were kept separate, isolated, from high school students.
As they moved through seventh and eighth grades, their contact with high school students increased.
"It wasn't intimidating. They seemed pretty friendly," Davis said of what he thought of high school students back when he was a sixth-grader. "I never had any problems, though I'm sure there were some."
Rich Abramson, superintendent of Maranacook schools, said the staff works hard to make sure interactions between high school and middle school students are appropriate and positive.
"I hear, occasionally, from parents who don't want their middle school students to be near high school students, that they're too young and impressionable," Abramson said. "There is some interaction, but mostly they stay in their own buildings."
But the closeness, Abramson said, provides opportunities.
For example, some Maranacook seventh- and eighth-graders take foreign languages or math classes at the high school level. Some high school students go to the district's elementary schools and middle school to help mentor younger students. And some Maranacook freshmen, if they're struggling in their high school classes, can get support from middle school teachers.
"My only advice is to move slowly. Change doesn't come easily to folks," Abramson said. "In Augusta, you've got Hodgkins teachers who have been together as a team. Now, they're going to be part of the high school team.
"My thinking is you have some wonderful opportunities."
Cony Principal James Anastasio said middle school students will have their own section at Cony, with its own stairwell, on the second floor of the high school, which was built in 2006.
And he said middle and high school students will be on separate schedules -- with high school students starting and ending their days earlier. They'll also have different lunch periods.
In Richmond, middle school students have their classes in their own wing but share common space, including the cafeteria and gymnasium. The lunch breaks are at different times, too, Fisk noted.
The middle schools at Hall-Dale and Maranacook have their own gymnasiums.
Lavoie, previously middle school principal who added the high school principal's job this school year, said he hopes Hall-Dale can foster more positive interaction between middle and high school students, such as in athletics.
"For a seventh-grader to have a senior athlete come down and work with them, that's big-time stuff for them," Lavoie said. "It makes an impact in a very positive way."
Hall-Dale senior Abby Crocker, who, like Davis, tutors sixth-graders in math, said having a similar program of high school students helping middle school students when she was in sixth grade could have made the transition easier.
"I have a feeling if high school kids had come down and helped tutor us in sixth grade, I might have been more comfortable," she said. "When I was in sixth grade, the middle school was very separate from the high school. I couldn't have even told you where the high school office was."
She also said that, as a middle school student, there were some high school students she admired and others she found intimidating.
"Let me have that middle school experience," she said of separating high school students from middle school students in sixth grade
Davis said that, as a senior, he enjoys working with sixth-graders.
"I think it's fun to come and see the sixth-graders, think back about where I was at that point as a sixth-grader, and see my old teachers," Davis said. "It's nice to give back. Some older students helped me out when I was younger, too."
Augusta school officials -- including Anastasio, Superintendent Cornelia Brown, and Hodgkins and Cony staff -- are currently working on the details of how the transition from Hodgkins to Cony will happen.
Augusta Board of Education member Richard Barnes said he expects many of the details to emerge at an April 6 meeting of the board's Education Committee.
Hall-Dale's Lavoie warned against going too far in trying to keep the younger and older students from interacting.
"I'd be careful to not go about it from an isolation point of view," he said. "Let's not isolate the kids from each other. Give them positive opportunities to interact."
Of course, Cony is much bigger than the other mixed campuses. Richmond only has about 120 middle school students, Fisk said, and about 185 high school. Hall-Dale has just fewer than 400 high school students and 200 middle school students.
Cony High School has about 900 students. Hodgkins has about 315 students.
Keith Edwards -- 621-5647
kedwards@centralmaine.com
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