Montgomery County Public Schools’ first “Transition Day” proved to be popular among students, staff and members of the Board of Education.
Peter Moran, chief of the Division of Leadership and School Improvement at MCPS, told the school board during Thursday’s meeting that most schools reported attendance rates above 90% on Transition Day.
It was held the day before the first day of classes and was designed to introduce kindergarteners, sixth graders and ninth graders to their new schools on a day dedicated to getting them settled in.
Referring to reports from elementary schools, Moran said, “Belmont, Beverly Farms, Paige, (and) Bannockburn had 100% of their students turn out in attendance.”
Moran also talked about meeting a middle school student named Franco at Roberto Clemente Middle School who told Moran that he thought his first year of middle school would “be a big year” for him.
“I loved that excitement that he shared,” Moran said.
“I got to see it at Blair — see what was happening — and it was just so wonderful to see. I would have loved that as a freshman. Personally, I think it would have made it a lot easier to manage my schedule,” student member of the Board of Education Anuva Maloo told the rest of the school board. “I’m very glad to see that it happened this year.”
School board member Natalie Zimmerman, who is a veteran teacher herself, said of her observations on Transition Day, “Not only did I not see any kindergartener tears, but I didn’t see any kindergarten parent tears, and that was really impressive!”
Moran added that he believes the kick-off to the school year has already had a knock-on effect.
“I think we saw the impacts of Transition Day actually not on Transition Day itself, it was on the following school days as students had this confidence and an ability to feel like it was their school,” Moran said.
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