Excitement buzzed down the hallways of CHS on Monday, Apr. 27. In their forum rooms, forum leaders, along with student volunteers, prepared to meet their new forumettes as the crowd of 8th graders rushed through the doors. As the CHS jazz band filled the air with music, the class of 2030 quickly filled the craft theater, awaiting speeches from CHS staff. AAPS’s annual “transition day” had just begun.
The yearly event gives the incoming freshmen a taste of what their future at Community will look like. The students meet their new classmates, are provided with snacks and are assigned to forums. Current Community students volunteer to guide them through the school, helping the incoming freshmen sign up for clubs, classes and upcoming opportunities available at CHS.
As the buses slowly arrived, students began filing into the craft theater for a welcome ceremony, where the CHS counselors introduced themselves and assigned each new CHS student to their forum. The incoming freshmen then walked to their new forums, where their leaders and classmates awaited patiently.
Unlike other high schools in Ann Arbor, Community is known for its longstanding focus on its forum system, where students have time carved out of their day to perform community-building activities and interact with classmates multiple times a week. Transition day has been a bridge for middle school students to be introduced to this environment.
Once each 8th-grade student was paired with someone from their forums, they were guided around the building, visiting mini info sessions about various subjects, such as split-enrollment, The Communicator, Community Ensemble Theater (CET), and a small club fair in the library. Afterwards, students returned to their forums to get a better sense of how the groups function.
After a packed afternoon of learning about CHS, the incoming freshmen boarded their school buses back to their middle schools for dismissal.
CHS science teacher Courtney Kiley was the primary leader and organizer of the event, along with CHS social studies teacher Ryan Silvester. According to Kiley, the format of the day has changed from what it was in the past, and now the day is centered more around information about CHS as well as meeting in forums, as opposed to what it was before, which was only sitting in forums for a full hour.
Her favorite part of the day is always getting to see the joy on her current forummette’s faces when they meet the new freshmen coming into the forum. Kiley states that the goal of the day is for the incoming freshmen to have people that they already know going into their first year at CHS.
“It’s fun to think about ‘what’s the best way to not scare new kids as much as possible,’” Kiley said. “Also, to give them an idea of some more things that Community has to offer.”
On the other hand, incoming freshman and current 8th-grader Sophia Scott liked meeting the CHS community for the first time and getting a clearer idea of what high school will be like. She described the day as exciting and a little overwhelming, as students were introduced to a wide range of opportunities in a short period of time. She’s excited to meet new people next year and experience a full year at CHS. Her friends were already discussing organizations such as journalism and mock trial, which were introduced during the day’s activities.
While transition day programs are commonly used in schools to ease the shift from middle school to high school, Community places a particular emphasis on its forum system. To ease the pressure, there are fewer high school students present, encouraging 8th-graders to interact with each other. According to CHS materials, forums provide opportunities for mentorship, community-building and student support, making it an important and defining feature of CHS. By introducing the incoming freshmen to the forum early, transition day allows a connection to form between peers and upperclassmen before the school year begins.
Transition day also provides a jump-start to students’ interests, offering clubs, classes and activities that they can participate in immediately. Exposing incoming freshmen to these events early helps them begin to consider how they may want to get involved in their first year of high school.
