Where are freshmen?

EDITOR:

Shame on you for not including the freshman students who made the first semester honor role in your Feb. 19 edition.

Retaining the freshman on the middle school campuses diminishes their first year of high school enough without our local paper contributing to the idea that ninth-graders are not high schoolers.

Many kids, especially the brightest, are more than ready, socially and emotionally, to move on to the high school campus by the end of their eighth-grade year.

Despite excellent academic programs in the middle schools most kids spend most of their year in limbo, and some fall through the cracks.

Our teenagers need as many positive challenges as we can give them to keep them engaged, motivated, and out of trouble.

In my opinion our school district should follow model based on the fundamentals of childhood development and move all the sixth-graders into the middle schools, and the ninth-graders into the high school where they belong.

Donna Buddington

Gardnerville

Editor's Note: Half of the freshmen are on page 15 today. The rest have yet to be sent to The Record-Courier's offices.