The Incoming 9th Grader Night has been evolving for as long as it has existed. Every year, organizers ask themselves: How do we get current 8th graders interested in high school classes? How should we include parents? How do the tours work?
As someone who has been involved in the Incoming 9th Grader Night for two years now, I can truly see the difference from last year to this year. Certain things definitely improved, but there are still a lot of problems that need to be fixed.
Last year, the 8th graders and their parents were separated throughout the entire process. While the parents were listening to different teachers talk about their departments, the children went on a tour of the school. Groups of around twenty to thirty students with only two to four honor society students were paraded around the school, which did NOT go well.
I saw the effects of this system firsthand last year when I was placed in the jewelry room with Mrs. Jo and a few other students to present about the class. I was innocently working on my peyote bracelet before the swarm of students came in; unaware of the events that were about to occur.
Let me tell you, this was one of the worst and most tiring events of my entire life. 8th graders were hitting each other with leather hammers and rulers with a complete lack of respect for what we had to say and the room in general. I was happy when it was 9 pm and I could finally leave, nervous about the freshmen that I was about to be stuck with at the high school.
This year, I helped lead a tour of a group of around thirty students and parents through the high school from around 7:30 to 9 pm. I was nervous about doing this because of my horrible experience last year, but I tried to go in with an open mind.
Parents were required to go on the tour alongside their children, which definitely kept them more in line. Despite this, some groups were still quite unruly, but it was better than last year, as not every group was hammer-hitting hooligans.
The only real issue I had this year was how crowded everything was. Most of the time, my group had to wait for at least two other groups to finish in a given room before we could go in, and most teachers didn’t stick to the allotted 2-3 minute time frame for their presentations. We ended up having to skip a lot of rooms because we didn’t have time or our group didn’t have enough interest to wait in line.
