Fifty-one students will show up to Bainbridge High School wearing the exact same outfit for the first day of school: a sky-blue T-shirt with the words “Link Crew” emblazoned across the front.
It’s no fashion faux pas.
They’re peer mentors for BHS’ new freshmen orientation program, and besides forgoing their right to “dress to impress” when classes resume the first week of September, they’re devoting 14 precious end-of-summer hours to smoothing out that oft anxiety-inducing middle-to-high school transition.
On Tuesday, the Link Leaders began their training, a two-day tutorial of team building and leadership techniques that will equip them to lead crews of 10 students at Spartan Start Up, BHS’ freshmen orientation event this Friday.
But the commitment to underclassmen doesn’t stop there.
Ideally, Link Leaders will connect with their crews all year long.
“The idea right now is to have at least once-a-month check-ins between the Link Leaders and their Link Crews,” said Katie Leigh, a BHS Health teacher who attended a Link Crew conference earlier this summer.
“By check in, we’re hoping that it’s something fun — if a leader is a soccer player, the crew might go along with the other leader and watch the soccer game — it doesn’t have to be all 400 students in the same place at the same time,” she said. “Just using that small group as a way to connect, to show there are things to do here.”
Freshmen won’t be required to participate after Friday, but the goal is that the activities will be compelling enough that they’ll want to attend.
And even if they don’t, they’ll at least have someone looking out for them, said Marina Cofer-Wildsmith, Bainbridge Youth Services’ executive director.
Cofer-Wildsmith and Leigh, along with Cezanne Allen of the Healthy Youth Alliance and Charisa Moore, a BHS Biology teacher, make up the four-person adult team helping to implement the program, which was paid for by BYS.
A group of 15 students, dubbed the A-Team, round out the planning committee. They act as the teenage pulse, helping to design events that reflect “what’s cool, what’s in,” Cofer-Wildsmith said.
A long-term orientation program is not a new concept for Bainbridge High (for the past five years, National Honor Society members have mentored incoming students one-on-one), but Link Crew is notable because of its group component.
“Every kid feels like they have a family,” Moore said. “It’s not this, ‘I just have one upperclassman I see every other day’ [experience]. Now there’s a big group they can pull from, which is really awesome; they feel like they know 10 people right away.”
Moore is also impressed with how the program topples high school stereotypes.
“You see a senior and they’re like an untouchable,” Moore said. “[But then] they’re turning around and coming back and leading a group of kids.”
She’s excited to see what will happen in coming years.
“Hopefully they feel included; this whole inclusive factor is so important. Everything can change for you; academics, your feeling of self-worth. It can make a huge difference in the rest of their lives. Making kids feel like they are cared about and they’re linked to people that are going to support them. Everyone wants that.”
Link Crew has been lauded by schools across the globe for its success in helping freshmen assimilate.
But, according to the folks at the Boomerang Project, the group behind the program, the benefits move far beyond positive feelings of inclusivity.
They claim Link Crew can increase attendance; reduce incidences of bullying, cigarette usage and male alcohol usage; and improve academic performance. For details, visit www.boomerangproject.com/link/success.
