Anoka-Hennepin board may consider reserving first day of classes for freshman orientation in high schools

Minnesota's largest district may soon reserve its high school campuses for ninth-graders on the first day of classes.

The Anoka-Hennepin school board is weighing whether to reserve the first day of school this fall for a day-long freshman orientation, a shift in the calendar that district leaders say will bring its five main high schools in line with their peers across the metro area.

In Eagan, Mounds View, Minneapolis and several other districts, high schools already reserve the first day of classes for freshman orientation.

District leaders will also likely discuss a proposal from high school leaders that would give teachers more time to meet and collaborate by either adding late starts, early dismissals or virtual days to the calendar.

The freshmen-only first day would improve the high school orientation process, Anoka-Hennepin leaders say, because younger students have a difficult time navigating their new schools and adjusting to unfamiliar lunchrooms when the buildings are bustling with other students.

"This is something we've been thinking about for a long time as principals," Anoka High Principal Mike Farley told the school board in late June.

The board could take up the idea as soon as Monday, and if approved, freshmen would attend in-person orientation activities on Sept. 6. Older students would begin classes the next day.

Josh Delich, the district's associate superintendent for high schools, said the freshman transition day would allow principals to better help those students acclimate.

"What we know is that day can bring about a lot of anxiety and a lot of fear, a lot of stress for kids," he said. "We have large comprehensive schools — thousands of students."

The district's smallest middle school, Roosevelt, enrolled just over 750 students last school year, according to state enrollment records. Its smallest of its five main high schools, Andover, enrolled more than 1,700.

Farley said students are still navigating the effects of the pandemic. This year's incoming freshmen would have been at the tail end of their sixth-grade years when COVID-19 forced schools across the country to shift into remote learning.

"They're still coming out of this stuff," Farley said. "What can we do that's going to ease that just a little bit?"

Ninth-grade orientation activities currently occur over the course of a three-hour program on the first day of classes.

Many of the activities are staffed by sophomore, junior and senior student volunteers who say they've found it difficult to juggle those duties with other obligations. The proposed change would make it easier for those students to volunteer, school leaders said.

"Our student leaders have a huge impact on our freshmen," Delich said.

Principals would largely have discretion over how to structure the freshmen-only day — and some leaders are considering virtual programs, such as handbook and policy reviews, for older students who wouldn't be at school in person that day.

That proposal drew mixed responses from the school board.

Board Member Nicole Hayes noted that students will need to navigate online systems in the future, whether it's to book a doctor's appointment or take a survey.

"This is just how life is right now," Hayes said.

Board Member Matt Audette, however, pushed back against including any online components in first-day activities for high schoolers. Audette said high schoolers he's spoken with consider virtual instruction days as time off.

"I like that you've laid a program out but I don't get if or how students are accountable to do it," he said. "I'm not much a fan of asking people to do something that's a requirement. I think we should generally move off the idea of asynchronous."