Editor’s note: The StarNews is following Brunswick County eighth-graders Austen Chestnut, Shiesha Hankins and James Jackson IV as they make the transition from middle to high school.

Austen Chestnut’s eyes and mouth widened. He had expected someone other than himself to get this.

But at the awards ceremony that marked the end of eighth grade at Cedar Grove Middle School, it was his name the principal called out as this year’s outstanding student, for his involvement in the school and the community.

“This student has consistently demonstrated strong morals and good leadership among their peers,” Principal Rhonda Benton said before announcing Austen had won. “The student is always willing to help any student or faculty member in any way possible … and is a young person of exceptional character and has a very bright future as a member of our community.”

Austen’s name will be etched forever in a plaque at the school. It’s particularly special because this was the first eighth-grade class at Cedar Grove Middle, which opened this past school year.

Students came over from different middle schools and had to adjust and learn to get along with each other while navigating the choppy waters of hormones and peer pressure. Now, they’re getting ready for an even trickier transition as they enter high school.

Austen and longtime friends Shiesha Hankins and James Jackson IV seem well-equipped to handle it.

They’ve had a lot of support from family and teachers and a solid record in eighth grade. Austen is the year’s top student, James is the year’s top poet, and both Shiesha and James got accolades for perfect attendance.

They also have each other, as all three will attend West Brunswick High next school year.

But the maturity some students display in eighth grade may be undermined in ninth grade, said North Brunswick High Principal Bob Grimes, who also has also been a middle school principal. They’d gotten used to being the oldest students in middle school, but now have to grapple with being the youngest in high school, a whole new territory with more freedom but also more responsibilities.

“I think they regress when they come here,” Grimes said.

Besides having to figure out their own schedules and go to classes and lunch by themselves, they look at seniors – just three years older but a lot more mature and stronger – and feel anxious about fitting in and being liked, Grimes said.

“Juniors and seniors can be a good and bad influence,” said West Brunswick High Principal George Kelley.

Lack of confidence helps lead freshmen to behave badly, to do “attention-getting things,” Grimes said. By the second semester, however, they become more confident as they’ve found new friends and clubs to be part of.

To help students start getting used to their new world, both North Brunswick and West Brunswick high schools have rising freshmen come in for a visit right before school starts. They’re shown their lockers, classrooms, cafeteria and schedules, and they meet teachers and administrators.

“When the day is done, they have a pretty good idea of what they need to do and where they need to go when they get here,” Grimes said.

This introductory visit is one of the elements Grimes has kept of North Brunswick High’s former Freshman Academy, which gave ninth-graders special attention and largely separated them from the other grades. The school also still groups freshmen in their own building for their core classes.

But other Freshman Academy elements, such as having some teachers work only with freshmen and having those students on a separate schedule scheme, didn’t work out and were dropped. Grimes said there weren’t enough teachers for that, and scheduling had become a nightmare.

While the state encourages school districts to create freshman academies and a more supportive environment for their incoming freshmen, it’s the local districts that decide how to handle the transition into high school, said Vanessa Jeter, spokeswoman for N.C. Public Schools.

It’s also important to offer alternative programs so students “are able to narrow the scope of courses to something they’re interested in and begin to see options for the future,” said Cindy Bennett, the state schools’ director of curriculum and instruction. She cited as examples vocational courses and early college high schools, in which students can get a two-year college degree along with a high school diploma.

Ninth-grade is the year that usually precedes the ages when students are most likely to drop out – 16 or 17 – often because they couldn’t get enough credits to move on with their peers, Bennett said. To help students recover credits and take classes that may not be available to them in school, the state offers a multitude of online courses through the N.C. Virtual Public School, she said.

For the rest of the article, go to Eighth grade ends with promising look ahead