Students head back to school

School bells could be heard from Morrison to Eastside on Monday as class is now in session for every school in the county.

Current enrollment at Warren County’s 11 public schools is 6,358 students, according to Director of Schools Dr. Jerry Hale. That number is bolstered by 1,826 students at Warren County High School.

‘After 10 days, we’ll begin to purge the rolls and get rid of the students who registered but never showed up,’ said Hale. ‘We’ll probably end up with between 6,200 and 6,300 students.’

Topping the list of school system additions for 2007-08 is the new $8.3 million school in Centertown. It’s the first time in 13 years the county has opened a new school (WCHS, September 1994).

As for possible new schools in the future, Hale said architect Derrick Clemow, who designed the new Centertown School, will conduct a study and put together a building program for the school system.

Also new this school year are three pre-K classrooms at Centertown, Hickory Creek and Dibrell.

They join existing pre-K classrooms at West, Irving College, Eastside and Bobby Ray.

‘That just leaves Morrison and hopefully we’ll have a pre-K class for Morrison next year,’ said Hale.

At the high school, teachers and administrators are working to implement a ninth-grade academy. The philosophy behind this is to keep freshman isolated from the rest of the student body to help ease the difficult transition to high school.

‘It’s going to be a school within a school as much as possible,’ said Hale.

This concept has been gaining popularity in education circles because of the normal development of most ninth-graders. They are too old to be stuck in middle school, yet they’re not completely ready for the high school environment either.

Hale said the initial stages of the ninth-grade academy are beginning this year and he expects it will take two years to fully phase in the program.