STARKVILLE — Ninth grade in the Starkville-Oktibbeha Consolidated School District could soon move back to Starkville High School.
Preliminary open discussions between SOCSD administrators and the board of trustees about moving the ninth grade back to SHS began Tuesday night at the district board meeting at Armstrong Junior High School.
While they are still considered high school freshmen, ninth graders have been attending AJHS since 2020 when Partnership Middle School was opened for sixth and seventh grades. Armstrong, previously for grades 6-8, was then converted to a campus for grades 8 and 9, with the latter moving over from the high school.
SOCSD Public Information Officer Haley Montgomery told The Dispatch that while the move is not official, the subject has been a topic of discussion among administration within the district prior to Tuesday night’s board meeting.
“The district has had some internal conversations about potentially moving ninth grade to Starkville High as we look at some of the logistics around their involvement in (career and technology education) classes, athletics, band and extra curricular activities,” Montgomery said.
Superintendent Tony McGee presented the idea Tuesday during his report, and SHS Principal Darein Spann and AJHS Principal Ra’mon Forbes spoke with the board about the plan and what the move would entail.
Spann said there are currently 1,043 students at SHS with roughly 340 graduating seniors. If SHS absorbed ninth grade in the 2023-24 school year, the student population at SHS would sit at about 1,450.
There are 16 ninth grade teachers, and Spann said the south wing at SHS can hold 12, which would be three classes each of science, math, English and social studies. The other four classes would be placed close to the south wing of the school and some CTE classrooms would move back to the Millsaps building so that could happen.
Forbes said there are already ninth graders who begin and end their school days at SHS because of extracurricular activities like band and athletics, and students are feeling a disconnect with their academic houses — pathways students choose to pursue and take courses on that could lead to a potential career that students enter in ninth grade.
“I have students who spend half their day, which is first and fourth block, at the high school,” Forbes said. “… When we talk about the academic houses, a lot of those students are going to continue and be a part of those houses — that was one of the things that when we talked to students, they said they felt the disconnect. They’re taking that first intro pathway course here, but that house is at the high school.”
McGee said he would like to have a decision from the board by March if the move will happen next school year. He said he’d like to hear from teachers and parents regarding the move either in an open forum at the next board meeting or through an email that will be set up by the end of the week.
Once a decision is made on which campus ninth graders will be on next school year, discussion and decisions will be made on what to do with the extra space at Armstrong, which conceivably could just be left with eighth grade.
“I’d like to first decide what we’re going to do here (with ninth grade),” McGee said. “If we could decide this in February or March, then we still have April and May to decide what to do with the space (at AJHS).”
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