WHITE RIVER JUNCTION — The freshmen descended on the library at Hartford High School, drawn in by the promise of hot chocolate — and help preparing for upcoming midterms.
“Cocoa and Cram,” which took place on a Wednesday afternoon earlier this month during the first week following the holiday break, was led by juniors and seniors who are part of Hartford High’s Link Crew, a year-long program that matches incoming students with leaders from upper classes to help ease the transition into high school.
The students first met each other at freshmen orientation in late August. Throughout the school year, the upperclassmen check in with their crew, whether it be face-to-face interactions in the hallways or in group texts to see if anyone needs help.
Hartford High educators selected the 40 juniors and seniors who serve as Link Leaders. There about 10 freshmen in each group, said Kara Garrow, an English teacher who leads the program with Rebecca Whitney, a library media specialist. Two or three upperclassmen work with each group of freshmen.
“They are building relationships, which is nice,” Whitney said during “Cocoa and Cram” as she directed students to different parts of the library based on the subject they needed extra help with.
In one section of the library, Jacob Taylor, a freshman, prepared for his algebra final with Colby Albrecht, a junior Link Leader.
“It’s been good to know I have people I can look to if I need help with something,” Jacob said.
For his part, Albrecht said, being a Link Leader has “been pretty fun.”
The response from the freshmen Albrecht mentors has been varied: Some reach out and want to engage while others prefer to find their own way. He described his own transition from middle school to high school as smooth. As a student-athlete, he felt welcomed by upperclassmen who played on the same sports teams.
“For non-sporty kids, this is a great way to get involved,” Albrecht said about Link Crew.
Link Crew is a national program run by the Boomerang Project, a California-based educational consulting firm that two former English teachers started 33 years ago.
“Removing the trepidation of being a new ninth grader at a high school and replacing it with a feeling of safety and comfort from an older, respected peer, has a direct impact on the way ninth graders feel about their school and their connection to it,” Mary Beth Campbell, one of the co-founders, wrote in an email. “Students who feel connected to their school and liked by older peers, naturally want to be there and in turn, perform better both academically and socially.”
More than 4,500 high schools in 47 states, seven Canadian provinces and nine international schools currently have Link Crew programs, said Campbell.
In the Twin States, Conant High School, in Jaffrey, N.H., and Champlain Valley Union High School, in Hinesburg, Vt., also have Link Crew programs. Hartford High School’s is the first in the Upper Valley.
The consulting firm hosts training programs for educators who wish to bring Link Crew to their high schools. Those educators then train student leaders using Link Crew curriculum, which includes how to communicate and mentor younger students.
Last spring, four Hartford educators participated in a multi-day Link Crew training program and a follow-up training in the fall, which cost $3,850 and was paid for using contractual professional development funds, said Hartford High Principal Nelson Fogg, who also participated in the training. There is no annual fee to have a Link Crew program at the high school.
“We have searched for a unifying way to support ninth graders and new students’ transition to our school; Link Crew feels like a great fit for our school community,” Fogg wrote in an email.
Hartford educators “are always looking for ways we can improve our students’ sense of belonging,” Fogg said, including how to help ninth-graders transition to high school, which can be a big change for some. At the same time, they were looking at ways to develop more leadership opportunities for upperclassmen. Whitney previously taught at a school that had a Link Crew program and suggested it.
“After researching Link Crew we felt strongly that this partnership may address these issues,” Fogg wrote.
The program has already started to make a difference, he said.
The educators trained the Link Crew leaders prior to the start of the current school year. The student leaders then led the ninth grade and new student orientation, which was previously run by educators. The older students’ role in the orientation “was significant for many of our ninth grade students,” Fogg said.
More broadly, Fogg wrote in an email, “we have heard from some parents and students that Link Crew has helped our new students feel a greater sense of belonging and that it has helped to have an identified ‘friendly face’ in the hallways.”
During “Cocoa and Cram,” freshman Loren Anton said the Link Crew leaders “have helped me with a lot of stuff.”
That was especially true in her early days at Hartford High School, when she had trouble finding which classrooms she needed to go to and sought out Link Crew leaders in the hallway for directions. As the semester went on, the upperclassmen reached out to their freshmen counterparts.
“They always check up on us,” Loren said as she prepared for her Spanish final in a section of the library that had been set aside for students who needed help with foreign languages.
After what they’ve observed this year, Hartford leaders are planning on continuing the Link Crew program in the future. “This investment in our school and community will continue to be positively felt for years,” Fogg said.