Seema Mehta writes an article in Los Angeles Times about taking sink or swim out of 9th grade. The article states that ninth grade determines a student’s success in high school. If a student does poorly in the first year of school they are likely to drop out of high school for the 10th grade. "A study released last week found that if students don’t start taking college-prep requirements in freshman year, they are less likely to meet the requirements for admission to California’s public universities", writes Mehta. We think the idea of building ninth grade schools or have programs to help ninth graders adjust is great. Helping incoming ninth grader adjust to high school will definitely curve the dropout rate among ninth graders. At the age of these ninth graders so much is going on with them physically and mentally because of the effects puberty that extra guidance and attention would help the transition. As educators, we do think this could be costly and maybe hard to implement in all school districts nationwide but this could work, definitely. You as a parent, would think that in this effort student, teachers and administrators will work together more closely to assure that student achieve and adjust so they will continue through school. All these efforts are great and should be tested and possibly adopted, but it need work on how to make sure that students are not only getting the attention they need but also the things they need for academic success. Will next Secretary of Education, be able to cope with this matter? There are some questions that flow in my mind, though, what happens when they enter the tenth grade? How are they introduce to the tenth grade without the support of the teacher and administration they previously had? Would that be the same as entering the ninth grade but in the tenth grade? How would that transition work? Can you make up to any of these questions? Glad to hear it and read them all. If you want to receive my future posts regularly for FREE, please subscrib