Education Week - November 1, 2017 - 10

Upperclassmen Help Peers Get a Footing in High School
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

unsure of themselves, isolated, and
afraid to seek help. More than older
high school students, freshmen risk
having to repeat a grade because
they failed too many classes and
lack the credits to move ahead.

That's why a good system to
monitor and support freshmen is
critically important, said Elaine Allensworth, the director of the University of Chicago Consortium on
School Research, which has studied
the way the freshman year can set a
negative pattern for the rest of high
school.
"That first year is especially powerful, because it's the time students
are developing their mindsets about
whether they belong and can succeed," Allensworth said.
"It's a time when important patterns are set for how you do school.
The key thing is establishing good
relationships early on. Then if
someone starts to slip, you can use
those relationships to say, 'Hey, do
you need help?' "
Peer relationships are particularly important in adolescence,
as young people start tuning out
adults' input and paying more
heed to what their friends say.
Summit High School, which serves
a diverse mix of students in this
middle-class town, aimed to capitalize on those dynamics when it
chose the Link Crew program five
years ago to combat a high freshman course-failure rate. Between
2014-15 and 2015-16 alone, there
was a 35 percent drop in the number of courses freshmen failed. The
graduation rate has inched up.
And fewer students are in remedial courses and summer school
now, freeing up money to support
a summer "bridge" program for rising freshmen, said Assistant Principal Greg Lopez.
Operating in 5,000 schools nationwide, Link Crew provides a
detailed training curriculum that
each school can customize to prepare 11th and 12th graders to look
after its freshmen.
"What we've always known is that
education is fundamentally about
relationships," said Micah Jacobson,
a co-founder of the Boomerang Project, a nonprofit that designed Link
Crew. "Kids who aren't connected do
worse in every possible way. Adults
in the system are overwhelmed. But
kids can help kids."
Unlike a typical freshman orientation, which lasts perhaps one day,
with a pep rally and campus tour,
Link Crew is designed to weave
upperclassmen, teachers, and administrators into a yearlong web of
support for 9th graders. Every one
of Summit's 600 freshmen has an
upperclassman to lean on.
Pairs of 11th and 12th graders
known as "link leaders" oversee
groups of 12 freshmen for the whole
school year. Here at Summit, the
link leaders undergo a weeklong
training that teaches them how to
break the ice with the new fresh-

Photos by Melissa Lyttle for Education Week

Make-or-Break Year

FROM TOP:
Senior Kyla Mitchell, right,
advises freshman Jacqueline
Mariscal about strategies she
could use to improve her
grades in math and English at
Summit High School in Fontana,
Calif. Kyla, who mentors several
9th graders, said math wasn't
her strong suit either. She
suggested peer tutoring and
asking the teacher for help.
Students stream to their
classes at Summit High. The
school credits its peermentoring program with
helping to reduce coursefailure rates during the critical
9th grade year. Fewer students
are also taking remedial
classes or going to summer
school.

10 | EDUCATION WEEK | November 1, 2017 | www.edweek.org

men, build closeness, and serve as
academic and social supports.
The link leaders organize ice
cream socials, scavenger hunts,
and a lot of casual connections-a
hug, a high-five in the hallway-to
stay connected.
Each pair of leaders stays in close
touch with their 12 freshmen, and
connects them with whatever they
need: tutoring, college planning,
help getting involved in the school
yearbook or tennis team. Even help
meeting new friends.
Behind the scenes is a network of
adults at the school who keep crucial information flowing to the 11th
and 12th graders.
Teachers and counselors send
bright blue-and-red slips of paper
called "link alerts" when they notice a freshman is struggling with

classes, or having trouble adjusting
to school social life.

Sharing Information
Those slips go to Summit's Link
Crew coordinator, teacher Jennifer
Karpinski, who discreetly funnels
the information to the right link
leaders. The leaders combine those
alerts with their own observations,
keeping track of their freshmen on
Excel spreadsheets. This one's not
doing so well in biology. That one
reported trouble at home. This one
didn't show up for math tutoring
as suggested.
On a recent afternoon, Melvin's
co-link leader, senior Kyla Mitchell, was in full monitoring mode.
She walked to a 9th grade health
class and pulled Jacqueline Mar-

iscal out for a little break. As
they walked across campus to the
tutoring lounge, Kyla chatted up
her freshman friend.
"So, how's it going?" she asks.
They laugh about a Spanish
teacher they've both had, and then
get around to the harder stuff: Jacqueline's not doing so well in math.
She's sad about it, and she's baffled.
Math was easy in 8th grade, she
told Kyla. "I just don't know what
happened," she says.
By now, the two girls have
reached the lounge. They sit down
together at a desktop computer,
and Kyla opens the school's student portal, where students can
check their grades, class assignments, and messages from teachers. "Do you know about this?" she
asks Jacqueline. "How often do you

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