BIDDEFORD — Entering the first year of high school can be a big transition for some students, so this fall Biddeford High School is starting a pilot program for a freshman academy to help ease students into this next phase of their education.

The purpose of the program is “to increase student learning,” said BHS Principal Britton Wolfe. “It’s an effective way to transition students from middle school to high school.”

While new to Biddeford, the idea of a freshman academy “is a common practice,” he said. “More schools use it than don’t use it.”

About 80 students from the freshman class will take part in the pilot program this year, which “will be run like ”˜a school within a school,’” said Wolfe.

The academy will have its own cadre of five teachers, including a special education teacher, who will use a team approach, said Wolfe. Teaching will be a more interdisciplinary process in the academy, which will have its own schedule, and there will be flexibility with more time for activities like field trips.

Teachers will have more time to prepare for classes, he said, and will have common procedures and will be able to work together to discuss the needs of individual students. Also, student advisory will be handled within the academy.

The biggest change is that students will have the same courses, the same classmates and same teachers all year long, rather than new courses at the end of a semester, said Assistant Superintendent of Schools Jeff Porter. This will allow students to have a better connection with their teachers and their peers, he said.

Having that sense of connection can be important, said Porter, because Biddeford High School is a large facility, especially with the renovations and new addition.

Some of the goals of the program, said Porter, are to increase the number of students who successfully complete ninth grade, increase those who earn enough credits to graduate, and to provide students with a more positive attitude toward their peers, their teachers and high school in general.

A committee spent more than a year setting up the program for the freshman academy, he said. Courses will include: English, social science, science, math, and two electives, one each semester. The electives will be the only courses students in the freshman academy will take outside the academy setting.

Because this is a pilot program, said Wolfe, data on the effectiveness of the program, students grades, attendance and data in other areas will be collected and analyzed.

If the freshman academy is determined to be beneficial, said Porter, he hopes it will be expanded to the entire freshman class in the future.

All freshmen will report to Biddeford High School on Sept. 6, at 7:50 a.m., a half-day earlier than upperclassmen. While some parents have said they would like freshman to have an entire day to themselves at the high school before the rest of the students arrive, Wolfe said, there isn’t enough time in the school calendar to allow for this.

The Biddeford school calendar is 175 days, he said, the minimum allowed under state law. Only the School Committee, who must consider the added cost of tacking another day onto the school calendar, can decide whether to allow freshmen to come a day earlier than others.

“I’m excited about this (freshman academy),” said Wolfe. “I think it’s the right thing to do. I’m very hopeful we’re going to have positive results from this.”

— Staff Writer Dina Mendros can be contacted at 282-1535, Ext. 324 or dmendros@journaltribune.com.