Starting with the 2024-2025 school year, Armuchee High School has the new addition of 6th grade on campus. With this addition, the high school is home to 6 grade levels, 6-12. Large changes like this have impacts on students and staff, and several concerns have been voiced about combining the schools. One concern that seemed to be widespread was separation of middle school students and high school students. Due to the concern of separation, we surveyed students and staff for their opinions on the matter. The school has been laid out to where the middle schoolers are mostly on the northern side of the school, and in a separate building connected on that side to the main high school. 6th-8th students also have an altered bell schedule. The high schoolers have 7 periods, 5 minute passing periods, and a 25 minute window of Silent Sustained Reading (SSR), while middle schoolers have 8 periods without SSR or passing periods.
Sixth grader Lillian Perry states “I feel like we could be more separated. There’s already different hallways, but I feel like we could be more separated.” Sixth grade teacher Katie Hulsey said that “We are as well as we can be; There’s no time in the day that I see a better solution to them being separated.”
With all of these changes, another thing asked was “Which campus did you like being at more?” Lillian Perry says “I like this one more; It’s a lot bigger and nicer than all the other ones.” Mrs. Hulsey agreed that this location was better. “I feel like 6th graders act more mature around older students.” She said “My favorite part of this location is how laid back it is; We are trusted to do our jobs here, nobody’s looking over our shoulder, and we trust the kids to do what they are supposed to.” Comparing this leadership compared to the other school, Hulsey stated “They tell you how to do things, and that’s how they are done; here we can trust students to be more responsible, and so we don’t have to be so rigid.”
The general consensus seems to be that both sixth grade teachers and students are enjoying being at the high school campus more than the middle school campus. Ashley Burns says “It has been a great transition. All the sixth grade teachers love it here; so happy.” Most survey participants did note the additional traffic on campus. Katie Hulsey said ¨I do know that the car line in the morning and in the afternoon is a struggle.¨ Given the amount of students and changes put on Armuchee High School this year, it seems that things are going very smoothly. Principal Joseph Pethel stated ¨I really think that it has been a lot better this year than in years past, because with the addition of the sixth grade, now we can operate our connections schedules to where whole grade levels can go to connection at one time, which opens up the schedule to be much more like a typical middle school schedule. Plus the addition of Mr. Elliot as assistant principal, Mrs. Clance as counselor, and a full time Ms. Ambrosio for art has been just awesome, so it’s been really good.” Pethel also claims that Armuchee High does not face any more challenges than any school in America, saying ¨You have to make sure that teachers are prepared for class, that students are learning state standards and engaging in the classroom, so I really don’t think that there’s anything different that we have had to worry about, that every school across the country has had to be aware of as well.” Armuchee High School has definitely changed with the addition of the sixth grade. Based on the statements given from students, staff, and administrators, these changes seem to have been generally positive.
