Many Baldwin Junior High students like to start their career at BHS early and they have just the opportunity to do that.
This opportunity of allowing JH students go to the high school to take classes started a long time ago before the now Principal Derek Bland who has been here for 7 years got here. But the only class kids could go to consistently was shop’. But now there are many more opportunities for the JH students to take all kinds of different classes in the HS.
A lot of teachers think it benefits them for the future by getting HS credits in JH.
“These CTE classes really benefit you,” Bland said. “Because as an eighth grader taking those classes and getting those credits your schedule opens up and by your junior or senior year you can take an internship or a work study where you’re actually getting paid to do these things you learned in the classes.”
Most students also love taking these classes for the benefit of the future.
“The benefits of these classes are getting the credits so that in the future it will be easier and they get you prepared for the next years to come so you know what it feels like to take some of these harder or more advanced classes,” eighth grader Dylan Van Horn said.
But though there are some benefits according to the eighth graders there are some challenges.
“I feel like these high school classes require you to study more and just be more focused than most of the classes at the junior high school,” Van Horn said.
BJHS teachers and administrators really believe that this program is good for eighth graders.
“Opportunities,” Bland said. “The idea that by the time you’re a junior that you could be doing things that traditionally you could not be doing really appeals to young people.”
And the teachers that teach these classes even enjoy and believe it benefits the students.
“I think it’s beneficial for both the students and us teachers to have 8th graders joining our classrooms at BHS,” teacher Kit Harris said. “We get to know them and work with them. And this helps them get a head start in our programs and they are then that much further along. For the students, I think they enjoy coming over here to BHS in a different building and being in classes with the high schoolers. I think they learn and gain a lot from the experience. I think it is definitely a win-win all around for everyone involved.”