An innovative new program is giving this year’s crop of freshmen at Ralston High School an entirely different experience than their predecessors.

This year, for the first time in the district, Ralston High School has a dedicated freshman success coordinator and freshman principal. This, along with new and different procedures and logistical changes are to not only make the transition as smooth as and stress-free as possible, but also help build a strong initial foundation for their high school career.

The program was announced last spring and is a city-wide push by the Metropolitan Omaha Education Consortium (MOEC), which Ralston Public Schools aligns with. Once RPS got on board, Assistant Principal Ryan Pivonka was named freshman principal for the program.

“(MOEC) is putting a lot of resources behind this and encouraging schools to implement programs like this based on what the research says is best for freshmen students’ success,” Pivonka said. “So, we got on board with the program, took some of the information they gave us, did a lot of research ourselves and are implementing a program in our office here.”

New freshman success coordinator Jordan Engel is in her eighth year in the district, previously teaching in the family and consumer science department. Along with her teaching experience, Engel has a master’s degree in educational leadership with a focus in work-based learning.

Based on data from MOEC, Pivonka, Engel and others began developing a plan for this year’s trial run of the program. One thing that was clear was there are certain benchmarks freshman must hit for them to have the best opportunity at continued success for all four years that lie ahead.

“A lot of (the data) was just the overall success that freshmen need to have by the end of their freshman year. The trend we were seeing was that a lot of freshmen were not on track to graduate, at the end of their freshman year,” Engel said. “Credits look very different from district to district but in Ralston, we need them to have 60 credits by the end of their freshman year, and that would in our eyes deem them as on track.”

The program also monitors attendance and tardiness, which are also indicators for success or lack thereof.

While one of the goals of the program is graduation, the program also aims to set put freshman in a position where they have freedom later in their academic careers.

“Our graduation rate wasn’t problematic or one of the main reasons why we went to this program. A lot of it was, if we can get students on track early, it opens up all their opportunities for their junior and senior years,” Pivonka said. “At Ralston, we pride ourselves in all the programs and academies that we offer for students. But, we were running into students that didn’t maximize their freshman and sophomore years the way they could, so they’re not able to take advantage of these amazing programs that we have.”

This year’s Ralston freshmen are on a separate and different schedule than the rest of the school, which uses block scheduling. Instead of having four classes for an entire semester, then another four the second semester, freshmen are on a hybrid structure where they have an ‘A’ day and a ‘B’ day and are taking both semesters simultaneously. This allows students to be in constant contact with teachers in the ‘core four’ subjects – math, science, English and history.

Melanie Peltz teaches English at Ralston High School and was part of the initiation and execution of the program in its first iteration, which included a freshman-only first day to get students comfortable and acclimated to their new surrounds. She believes getting the freshmen in a good mental space, along with consistent progress checks go a long way in avoiding some of the typical freshman pitfalls.

“I think one of the really important things for our school is that we wanted to rally around the freshmen in order for them to get off to a strong start,” she said. “I think having those interventions early and often help establish a student as a strong Ralston Ram from the beginning really matters.”

While much of the program revolves around academics, the social and mental aspect was an important aspect of the freshmen-only first day. While the program is malleable and will likely continue to be tweaked, Peltz believes there were a lot of positives to this year’s plan thus far, especially considering the unusual circumstance this year’s class in in with the ongoing pandemic.

 “We had a shortened schedule, we pumped them up with greeting them at the door, the mascot, the colors, lots of hoots and hollers, a pep rally and short introductions to their teachers,” Peltz said. “I think that broke the ice for them and eased their minds in a lot of ways. I think we’re still enough in the initial phases of implementation that it’s hard for us to know exactly what’s working really well for our students, but initial data shows we have far fewer students in our freshman class failing at this point compared to last year. We’re going to continue to hone in on those things where we build those relationships with out freshman who are coming from a very odd middle school career and entering into a very odd space as freshmen. I think that holding them in a treasured space for this first year where they have a connection all year long versus half of the year with their core teachers is really going to make a big difference.”