Growing to new heights

Next year, an additional 61 students will arrive at the Upper School, struggling to open their lockers and find their new classes. At the start of the 2016-2017 school year, sixth-graders will be joining the Upper School community.

The addition of the sixth grade to the Upper School is made possible by a Headway Enrichment Grant from the Legacy Heritage Foundation that CESJDS received to redesign the middle school program and to reconfigure the Upper School campus to accommodate another grade.

Fifth-grader Remy Eidelman said that his teachers are constantly reminding him of the higher expectations that come with being a middle school student. He will not be arriving unprepared. Middle School Principal Rebecca Weisman said that the Lower School teachers have been working with the fifth and sixth-graders to help them learn independently, better organize their schedules and use technology more effectively in the classroom.

While the current fifth-graders will have to adjust to being the youngest in the Upper School, Eidelman believes that his grade will ultimately benefit from moving up earlier.

“Being in the Upper School is generally different and you probably feel more mature there, not being there with the kindergartners and [instead] being with the older kids,” Eidelman said.

According to Eidelman, being around upperclassmen can be nerve-wracking, but the plans for next year’s separate high school and middle school spaces are designed to help alleviate that concern. The middle-schoolers’ classroom-based courses will mainly be in the 100s classrooms, apart from the high school students. Despite this physical separation, middle-schoolers will still have opportunities to interact with high-schoolers, like in Zman Koshesh, and will continue to attend classes in the gym, arts classrooms and science labs.

Seventh-grader Daphne Kaplan said that middle school students often “look up to the high-schoolers as guides,” and she hopes that the middle-schoolers can continue to do so even with the separation.

Kaplan found adjusting to the Upper School difficult because of the transition from a consistent and easy-to-follow group schedule to a more complex and individual one.

To make adapting to an individualized schedule easier, Weisman said the new middle school schedule will be “very predictable.” With the exception of electives, which will be different depending on the day but in the same overall time-slot, middle school students will have the same classes in the same order each day. According to Weisman, the changes will allow the middle school to develop an identity separate from the high school.

“It’s time for the middle school to feel like its own entity,” Weisman said. “Our students get a really great education [now], and we’re really making it pretty extraordinary. I’m just pretty excited to be a part of it. It’s a great time to be a middle-schooler at JDS.”

Sixth-grader Julia Peppe also believes that the increased distinction between middle and high school will help middle school students.

“Instead of saying, ‘Oh we’re just in the Upper School,’ now we’re in the middle level, so it’s going to ease [the transition,] and then it will eventually get harder,” Peppe said.

Although Peppe is nervous to be in the Upper School next year, she said that next year will be “full of new chances” and she looks forward to the new privileges offered in the Upper School, like the ability to choose one’s electives.

“I’m excited about the responsibilities, but I’m also a little nervous that if I forget something, then it’s all my responsibility and I’m in charge of myself,” Peppe said.

While there are many benefits to the sixth grade being in the Upper School, moving two grades to the building in one year also has its downsides. Eidelman said that his grade is missing out on being the oldest in the Lower School, which includes having privileges like being able to lead some school activities and feeling like role models to the younger students.

Peppe, however, said that the school is currently splitting a lot of the opportunities the sixth-graders normally get with the current fifth-graders. For example, this year both grades patrolled for half of a year, a responsibility traditionally reserved for sixth-graders.

Another change for next year is that in order to accommodate two grades’ orientations in the same day, both orientations will be shorter and the beginning of the school year will be more of a transition period than in the past.

“We’ll be spending those first few weeks of school going over certain topics, certain skills or just how to do certain tasks, because it’s a lot to take in at once,” Weisman said.

Although Eidelman recognizes that it will be something to get accustomed to, he is happy to move to the Upper School next year.

“It’s kind of cool knowing that the school trusts our grade to move up to be the first [sixth grade in the Upper School],” Eidelman said.