Maplewood's Freshman Academy

The 2008-2009 school year brought an exciting new change to the way students would make the transfer from middle school to high school. This transition normally for most students is very stressful and can cause fear of the unknown for the students. This year however, we have implemented a Freshmen Academy that will better serve the students in many ways. The academy is made up of teams of teachers which are called small learning communities. Every freshman when they enroll into school at Maplewood High School is placed on one of these teams. The purpose of the teams are so that each student has only the teachers that are on their teams. This allows the teachers to interact about any student to better help the education process. So far in only one year, the Freshmen Academy has managed to raise students’ grades while also lowering its need for disciplinary action.