Educators Find Extra Attention Paid to Students at Tumultuous Time Reaps Rewards Later

As someone whose initial high school years were pure hell, I can vouch for the necessity of programs like this…

By 2001, Margee Walsh had dealt with every variety of that anxious species known as the ninth-grader. So when she met Ishmael Salandy, who had gotten into some minor trouble at school, she thought she knew right away what he needed.

Salandy lived in a low-income part of Alexandria. Only one parent was at home. But there was a spark in Salandy, a yearning for something better that Walsh could recognize in his tone of voice, his choice of friends, his promising grades. Walsh was principal of the Minnie Howard School, one of the few schools in the country that has only ninth-graders, and she had made it a rule that her students would all get very personal attention.

Much later, Salandy told Walsh he saw she had written these words on a form with his name on it: “Need to get him a mentor. He’s a real leader.”

“How did you know that?” Salandy asked Walsh, after he was elected president of his high school class. The answer, from Walsh and several other educators, is that they make it their business to know. Teachers are increasingly searching the records of each new ninth-grader before school begins and talking to their families and previous teachers. Because ninth grade, the beginning of high school in most cases, can save or ruin a young life.

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