We’re enthusiastic about a new project we’re supporting at nearby Norwood High School. The school has completed smart and thorough preliminary planning across academic, student support, and operational domains for a First Year Academy which will open in the 25-26 academic year.

Members of the Academy’s Planning Committee, almost two years old, joined prospective teachers in digging into what the school experience could be like for all concerned in an intense two-day August retreat. The agenda was ambitious: exploring values and beliefs, assessing the efficacy of systems and policies already in place, identifying the need for new thinking, understanding the rules of the road when making durable consensus decisions and managing high-stakes meetings. Exchanging work groups on different tasks, using different strategies to meet the desired outcomes, and working with student and teacher life in the mind’s eye made for a productive outing.

As we’ve known, “middle school” students can come in all shapes and sizes and, across a typical 11–14-year age span, display great differences among factors such as social adeptness, family background and norms, body strength and coordination, motivation and outlook, academic acumen, reading level and vocabularies, executive function, and a host of others. Recognition of those potential differences was clearly on the page for the Norwood team, who seem game to welcome all of their learners and caregivers, going out of their way to be inclusive in their planning, the development of their vision and the daily experience that will make it tangible.

**Norwood Faculty at Work at their Summer Retreat**

Zooming out to the big picture, focusing more directly on entering ninth grade students is now happening frequently. A number of large and mid-size city school systems have made it a priority to examine their capacity to support learning and development at that transition point from middle school to high school, but it’s also happening in rural and suburban schools. The impact of COVID on many students who were in mid-elementary school at the time is being felt in schools across the nation. During the pandemic, many students got less than full attention in developing literacy skills in the lower grades, making the critical flip from “learning to read” to “reading to learn”. Many others felt the lack of opportunity to be part of a community, honing social skills as part of their learning. In addition, the acute mental health challenges that spiked then have not receded, and schools, not adequately resourced or structured for that burden, can groan under the load.

Given that so much in education policy seems cyclical, it’s helpful to recall that “Ninth Grade Academies” were popular in the mid and late 1990s, as the energy and investments of those times included taking a deeper look at that pivotal year of entry into high school. During those exciting years new learning in adolescent development, including a pivot from deficit-based theories to “positive youth development”, and burgeoning new and engaging teaching strategies such as Inquiry Learning were springing up from networks like the Coalition of Essential Schools, the Accelerated Schools, the Turning Points Middle School Network, and a host of progressive university Schools of Education.

The introspection of the 1990s also revealed the crucial nature of transitions in schools, especially those serving low socio-economic populations. One popular saying became “transitions are the villain” , meaning likely places for students to go off-track. Moving teacher to teacher, class to class, grade to grade, school to school, brought with it potential negative impact on the strength of relationships, outlook and motivation, and resultantly, achievement. Entering high school, which was viewed by many as the biggest and most important of all transitions, spawned a proliferation of attempts to improve the hand-off from “middle school” to the classical “upper school", where all the rules and ways of daily life are new and different.

Unfortunately, in 1999 the No Child Left Behind legislation bound schools together in following a top-down agenda, froze innovation and new approaches, and cemented the century-old architecture of high schools. Not much of that era’s new learning was carried forward as schools moved towards standardization and test-based “accountability”.

Norwood High School, refreshingly, has made a significant commitment to making sure entering students do see what’s ahead of them, get critical support, and can take advantage of its many resources. Working in the library of their spacious new high school, Principal Hugh Galligan invited retreat participants to practice activities calling for shared leadership and consensus building, choosing from a menu of options that included positive character development, conflict resolution, critical media literacy, digital etiquette, and executive function, among others.

**The ”builders” of Norwood High School’s new First Year Academy**

Since we met, I’ve been impressed by the thoughtfulness and transparency of the Norwood effort, led by Galligan’s energy and high touch skills. It wasn’t surprising to me to learn that he was the 2022-23 Massachusetts High School Principal of the Year. Galligan routinely shows his own leadership tool kit: honoring the hard work that has occurred while keeping people open to new possibilities, digging in hard to the thinking but having fun and laughs in the midst, owning important chunks of the work himself while inviting others to take on significant tasks moving forward.

In creating the First Year Academy new ideas, survey data, and planning documents have been meticulously captured, shared and vetted with stakeholders on a consistent basis. High School representatives have been in dialogue with community members, middle school staff, their fellow faculty, and current students in assessing which elements would make for the most positive social and academic experience. Planning Committee members have visited other schools with similar academies, brought back anecdotal data to share with others, and are keeping an open mind as they co-design the Norwood prototype.

The Summer Retreat included a diverse group: newer faculty along with veteran teaching staff, representatives of differing curriculum departments, guidance and social work staff, and members of the school’s administration. In addition to assisting with presentations and facilitation, Associate Principal Cindy Derrane thoughtfully provided table tools and puzzle pieces for the group to assemble in a final “show your learning and progress” activity.

Committee member and Assistant Principal JuanManuel Gonzales, who’s served in other schools prior to arriving at Norwood, recalled that one important driver for the Academy was to front-load supports for students, rather than waiting until later years when they better understood such issues as grades, credits, and academic performance and how to access help when needed. When asked what he thinks will be factors in success he had two things to say, “As a school veteran I know that for something as big as this you need a good plan, and I think we have one. And we’ll need teachers working closely together, taking responsibility, being willing to grow and learn, solve problems, and being flexible, and by all signs, we’re ready for that as well”.

The Retreat ended with a viewing and assessment of those afore-mentioned puzzle pieces to display consensus on key tasks while pointing forward to next steps. Photos of participants in their “building and construction” outfits and an ice cream truck with sundaes for all made for a great departure celebration. We recalled that in our planning, describing what he hoped for over the two days, Galligan stated, “we want to take this opportunity to get as close and tight as we can, since we know once we’re in regular school mode, things can loosen up”. Looking back, we’d say, “mission accomplished”.

We at ERC look forward to facilitating the teams going forward, sharing tools and perspectives and learning from Norwood’s efforts as well. To learn more, feel free to contact us or the administration of Norwood High School.

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To explore our ERC coaching, professional development and strategic planning resources, contact larry@educationresourcesconsortium.org