In 2018 BCHS was introduced to the Freshman Academy.  The freshman academy is where all freshman classes are on the same floor, all near each other. The idea behind the academy is to help 9th grade students adjust more easily to the demands of High School by minimizing the area they must travel and to group them with common teachers as often as possible.  Bourbon County 9th grade students come top the high school having experienced the same type of environment at the middle school. 

Even taking this into consideration, teachers and students have mixed feelings about this. Freshman, Carol Cockrell said “All my classes aren’t in the same area because I’m in advanced classes but my normal classes, I don’t like them being all in the same area. If they were all spread out you would be able to see more of the high school and it would help you in the long run for grades when you get farther along in high school.”

Freshman Social Studies teacher, Brayden Friedman said “I think it was a good idea because it gives more support to them and they typically need a little more support in making the transition successfully up to the high school.”

 Assistant Principal, Kelly McIntosh explains her opinion on the freshman academy “Last year we realized that when all the freshman were upstairs and downstairs it caused a lot of commotion. Some of them didn’t feel comfortable walking in the halls with upperclassmen and we wanted to make sure they had a good transition from eighth grade to tenth grade, so that ninth grade is very very valuable. Having them on the bottom floor allows us to keep everybody structured and in teams basically that they’re used to. We’re hoping that helps with the failure rates because we had so many freshman in summer school last year and we really don’t want that. We want them to stay on track, graduate and be successful.” 

Spanish teacher Kathryn Manning said “It does help I think freshman if they don’t have to move around the building so far because they’re nervous about where to find things, getting there on time, getting to the bathroom and those kinds of things. If you can limit the space in which they have to travel, I think that does help. They also have the same teachers and they get to know those teachers better because if their comfortable with their teachers and they’re comfortable in their classes, then they are more likely to have a good experience in high school. Your freshman year kind of determines the rest of your four years and what they are gonna be like. If you have a good first year, you stand well to have a good sophomore, junior, and senior year.

Freshman English teacher, Amy Hynes said “I think it has helped a little bit, but I think that we have a lot of work to do, although I think it was a good start in improvement.” The Freshman Academy has seemed to be very beneficial for students and teachers.