Freshmen will participate in a pilot program this year designed to help students make an easier transition from middle school to high school.

Trustees approved the plan by a vote of 6-1 on Monday night. It will impact students attending Bolingbrook High School and Romeoville High School.

The plan was approved following a heated exchange between Mike Evans, the lone board member to vote against the proposal, and a few board members and Bolingbrook High School Principal James Mitchem.

The program, which had been implemented at Romeoville High School the past three years and voluntarily administered by teachers during home room lunch period, will be added at Bolingbrook High School and then re-evaluated at the end of the school year.

The program will continue at Romeoville High School.

This year’s formal pilot program also will be administered by teachers on a voluntary basis, but if renewed next year would cost the district about $300,000.

“I am discouraged about the reasons it is needed,” Evans said during board discussion on the issue.

Evans said the district “should be ashamed” that students entering ninth have not been adequately prepared for the challenges of high school, and that teachers eventually will be paid to “do what they should be doing.”

“The problems are at the elementary and middle school level,” Evans said. “We shouldn’t have to be holding their hands by the time they get into high school.”

The pilot program, called Freshman Seminar, requires freshmen at both district high schools to enroll in a academic/socialization course that is worth one-half credit for the entire year — a quarter-credit for each semester successfully completed — and taught during each student’s home room/lunch period.

The course would teach academic skills such as good study habits and note taking, as well as social skills and an indoctrination to secondary leaning expectations.

Mike Perrott, assistant superintendent for middle and secondary education, said several other area districts — including New Trier High School, Neuqua High School and Plainfield High School — employ a similar course to help students make the transition to high school.

“At Bolingbrook High School in 2007 more than 1,800 F grades were given out to freshmen, but that number dropped to 375 for juniors and 446 for seniors,” Perrott said. “Data indicates if we can get to students earlier and provide support, the numbers would improve.

“One out of every six high school students in our district is not at their appropriate grade levels.”

Perrott also said absenteeism is significantly higher among freshmen than any other grade level.

“They can’t learn if they are absent,” Perrott said.

Evans said the numbers indicated something else.

“Incoming freshmen are not prepared, and high school teachers do a good job of educating kids based on the fewer number of F grades given to uppeclassmen,” he said. “The problem is in our K-through-8 system.”

Evans suggested teachers should be willing to teach the seminar during home room lunch voluntarily in 2009 because “this is the only profession where you get paid while not working.”

“The problem is this district is contract-driven,” Evans said.

Mitchem defended teachers at all levels.

“No Child Left Behind legislation asks teachers today to do things the system was not designed to do,” Mitchem said. “This is not a failure of the teachers at all.”

Not all students learn easily, Mitchem said.

“The fact is parents of some of our children have high expectations for their children, and some don’t,” Mitchem said.

Mitchem said the issue of compensating teachers to teach the course is not at issue.

“Compensating teachers is a contractual issue that I have no control over,” he said. “But I do know my students, and they need structure, and in some cases, we need to hold their hands.”

Before the final vote was taken Evans said teachers still should be willing to provide assistance without additional compensation, and added he was not willing to vote to approve a program that would “cost taxpayers an additional $300,000.”

Mitchem said teachers employed at Bolingbrook High School care about the students, then rebuked Evans for suggesting teachers don’t care enough about students.

“It is an edict that they do (care). I don’t know what it was like when you were in high school, but that’s not how it is today,” Mitchem said. “We need to capture every single kid that comes in our doors, not just a few.”

The program will be reviewed at the end of the 2008/2009 school year, and at that time teachers to administer the program next year will be identified, Perrott said.