For the past twelve years, Davie High has offered eighth graders the option to apply to the STEM Center, a program that has operated as a school within the school for the students accepted into it. But the class of 2028 will be kicking off something new. The Freshman Academy is being introduced to Davie High next fall to help students make the transition from middle school to high school.
The Freshman Academy is also one of Davie High’s first steps into making the switch from STEM to STEAM. The STEM Center has been in place since 2012, which emphasizes science, technology, engineering, math, and continuing education to develop social skills. STEAM has many of the same focuses but extends the opportunities given to students. The Freshman Academy will allow all students to learn these skills. Tani Caudle, an English teacher at Davie High who will be on the Freshman Academy team next year, believes this will allow students to be more successful in their high school careers and beyond.
“The Freshman Academy is a way to transition students from middle school to high school,” Caudle says. “It is set up to have lots of support—academic, behavioral, social—in place to help all freshmen be more successful. All of these classes will also incorporate STEAM classroom strategies that will spread throughout all four grade levels by the time next year’s freshmen graduate.”
The Freshman Academy is displacing many things in the current Davie High layout. The English hallway on the second floor is going to be designated for the academy itself. This means that, unlike the rest of the school, this hallway will contain a mixture of all core class subjects: math, English, science, and history. When teachers were asked about the most prominent change, many mentioned the location, including math teacher Ashely Johnson. She notes, however, that this change will potentially be a win for students and staff. “Freshmen will share a lot of the same teachers, which will make communication easier between students and their teachers.”
Despite this benefit, this location change is still concerning for many. The idea of students’ core classes being confined to one hallway has worried some incoming students and their parents. They believe the incoming freshman won’t learn to navigate the high school. Freshmen will have CTE, arts, and physical education classes out of the hallway to ensure they get the full experience of the campus. Tani Caudle, an English teacher who has been selected for the project, shared her thoughts on this fear. “Students have mentioned the idea that Freshmen Academy is a way to isolate and ‘jail’ all of the incoming freshmen. The goal is to create a cohesive plan to help freshmen lower failure rates and discipline referrals (freshmen currently hold the highest rates of these) and offer guidance from teachers on how to do so effectively.”
When formulating the plan for the Freshman Academy, teachers considered the issue of whether incoming freshmen understood the change that high school is. English teacher Donna Dunn posed the question, “Do new freshmen understand that they cannot be tardy to class, and if they are, there are consequences? Do new freshmen understand that they have to manage their time differently than they have had to in the past? Do new freshmen understand that their work must be completed by the due date in their classes?”. Teachers have worked endlessly to ensure that the freshman academy will teach students these skills to prepare them for success in the rest of their school careers.
Many doubts about the change stem from one question: will the students grow enough without the initial challenge of navigating high school? Dunn also acknowledged this when talking about the upcoming academy.
“The only con that I can think of is the possibility that students would not have the tremendous growth that comes in the first year of high school. I think we have and will continue to work to be sure that it is a year for growth. Students are different people at the end of freshman year than they were at the beginning, and that is one of my personal favorite things about teaching freshmen! Honestly, they are different people by the 4th or 5th week of school! I just love getting to be part of that.”