Ninth Grade

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Education Feature

Ninth Grade

By Yvette J. Brown
CWK Network
 
“You think at the beginning of the year, ‘It’s just high school. It’s just a different grade.’ But it’s not. It’s a big difference,”
–

Devin, 9th grader

–

15-year old Devin started high school on a bad note. On her first quiz.

“I got a fifty and I was just shocked by my grades,” she remembers.

After her first failing grade, things continued to go downhill. By the end of her first semester, she had failed two classes.

“My social life was a big part of everything. I had to meet new people, had to find new friends.”

Experts say, like Devin, many students get off track their freshman year.

“Because of poor choices as far as who their friends are or choosing not to study, not to do homework,” explains Dr. Bobby Macris, a high school curriculum director.

Ninth grade is a pivotal year. According to recent studies, up to 80-percent of students who flunk freshman year will never graduate.

“The ninth grade sets the foundation for the academic career of the student through high school and possibly through college. But a child cannot wait until they get to ninth grade to start, ” says Dr. Macris.

Good study habits, time management skills, how to take notes, Dr. Macris says, students need to focus on these things in junior high.

Once in 9 th grade, parents need to stay connected- keep in touch with teachers and counselors, keep track of assignments and grades and above all teach your kids that in high school, more than ever, they are responsible for themselves.

“You realize that this isn’t middle school anymore. They’re not gonna baby you. You have to be independent about certain things,” says Devin.

She will have to go to summer school to make-up the classes she failed. But she says next year things will be different.

“I’m gonna try to go in with a different attitude toward school- be more organized, be more prepared. I want to look back on my high school career and know that I did well.”

 
Related
Information

By Larry Eldridge, Jr.
CWK Network, Inc.

Ninth grade is a time of great change in many students’ lives. They are either the “big men on campus” or else they are on the bottom of the totem pole. As the debate rages on as to whether ninth graders should be in middle or high school, experts have developed advantages and disadvantages to keeping ninth graders in the same school with the sixth, seventh and eight grades.

Advantages:

  • Ninth graders can have a leadership role that they would not enjoy in a senior high school setting.
  • The difference in age between age 14 (ninth grade) and age 18 (twelfth grade) is so great that it can be difficult for some ninth graders to adjust.
  • Some ninth graders are too young and immature to be placed with senior high school students.
  • The four-year stay in one school facilitates better relationships for students, staff and parents than a shorter stay.

Disadvantages:

  • Ninth graders are more like tenth, eleventh and twelfth graders because most have gone through puberty.
  • Separating ninth graders from tenth, eleventh and twelfth graders limits curriculum and extracurricular offerings for them.
  • The younger children, especially the sixth graders, may want to imitate the ninth graders and grow up too fast.
 

By Larry Eldridge, Jr.
CWK Network, Inc.

Ninth graders will experience a variety of new skills and milestones. It is always good for parents to have some idea of what their student is going through, and the following list developed by experts should help.

  • Intellectual Skills – Higher expectations coincide with his/her own increasing abilities. He/she will have interests that span farther and wider than ever, in addition to a greater awareness and curiosity about the world around him/her. An example of your teenager’s expanding intellect is his/her newfound skill of deductive reasoning.
  • Social Skills – Your adolescent is becoming less egocentric in his/her views, and that gives a greater ability to compromise, to stay composed when he/she’s in disagreement with someone and to be generally more tolerant and even-tempered. His/her view of the world will settle first on the friends he/she has around him/her.
  • Emotional changes – While your ninth-grader is less self-conscious than he/she has been in the past couple of years, he/she is most likely still uncertain about how he/she measures up. Physical appearance matters greatly to him/her, as well as how they’re developing.
  • Challenges – Your student will encounter many challenges throughout the ninth grade year, and the most common ones are academic failure, eating too much or too little, struggling with abstinence versus teenage sex and adjusting to a bigger school.

U.S. Department of Education
Family Education Network
Parent Soup