MORAVIA -- Moravia High School has found its niche in providing ninth grade students a successful transition from middle school to high school.

In an effort to combat rising retention rates, high school principal Brian Morgan and a group of teachers banded together two years ago to find a way to increase academic achievement and prevent students from being left behind at the end of the year. They decided to create a Ninth Grade Academy, house ninth graders all in one wing with their core teachers and offer a freshman transition course, Freshman Focus.

This year's Freshman Focus, Morgan said in a presentation to the Moravia Board of Education Wednesday evening, is the best they've seen.

"What we do in that course is really limitless," he said. "Our goal in there is to get students to feel that they can be successful in high school."

While all students take the course, Freshman Focus is used primarily for students needing Academic Interventions Services in English and math. For students not needing AIS, Morgan said, they receive classroom time to work on academic projects such as research projects.

The teachers place an emphasis on MLA research papers, career exploration and goal setting.

Between the years 2002 and 2005, Morgan said, the high school had a 14 percent retention rate for ninth graders with 51 percent failing at least one or more classes per marking period.

The first year the high school offered Freshman Focus, the retention rate dropped to just two percent. While last year's rate increased to four percent, the class size was larger than the year before, Morgan said.

For more, read Thursday's Citizen