The Class of 2010

Yearbooks and school socials, tears and cheers, four students finish middle school -- ready for high school, but wanting to stay awhile longer

01:00 AM EDT on Sunday, June 25, 2006

BY JENNIFER D. JORDAN
Journal Staff Writer

 

Adam Littlefield slouches on the sofa, his tie slipping to one side, his eyes darting to the staircase. At age 14, he is engaging in a timeless ritual: waiting for a girl to get ready.

On this balmy June evening, Curtis Corner Middle School in South Kingstown is holding its Eighth Grade Social.

Adam is, in fact, waiting for two girls -- Breanna Hinson and Molly Devine. A third friend from their days at Matunuck Elementary School, Andrew Shumate, is expected to arrive any minute.

The four have been in school together since second grade. But with the end of middle school in just a few days, that will change.

Adam, Molly and Andrew are going to South Kingstown High School this autumn. Breanna's family is moving to Texas next month, because of her father's job. She has asked her oldest friends to her house for pictures in the front yard.

"You look handsome, Adam," says Molly's mother, Nancy Devine, as they wait in the Hinson's living room.

She turns to Maureen Littlefield, Adam's mother. "Debbie drove them up to the Providence Place mall and back this afternoon," she says. The girls got their make up done at Nordstrom, and now Debbie Hinson is upstairs putting the finishing touches on the girls' hair.

A few minutes later, Breanna and Molly come down, each wearing cream-colored dresses. Breanna's is strapless and falls above her knees; Molly's is sleek and longer. They grin.

The teenagers and parents head outside for the photographs.

"I'm not ready for you to go to high school," Maureen tells Adam.

"I'm done with it," Adam says of middle school.

ADAM LITTLEFIELD, Gigi DeBarros of Pawtucket, David Dennis of Middletown and Jennifer Callaghan of Coventry, like 12,000 other Rhode Island students, are finishing middle school this month.

Among the four, feelings about the end of the eighth grade vary. The end, for some, is a natural step and not one they have agonized over. But for others, it marks a milestone in their young lives, and they have mixed emotions about the change.

They still remember what it was like to be the youngest and littlest in a new school, so they can imagine what this fall will feel like when they start high school.

"What I will miss most about middle school is the fact that I know it like the back of my hand," Jenn says. "The high school is so large. I'll probably get lost."

ON A HOT Friday morning in early June, Gigi DeBarros and her classmates walk the mile from Slater Junior High School to the playing fields behind Nathanael Greene Elementary School in Pawtucket. It is Field Day, and the eighth grade will spend the day playing games in the sun and signing yearbooks in the shade.

Gigi, 13, and her friends reminisce about previous field days as they walk.

"Remember when Brigid threw the water balloon at Amanda?" Gigi says, as the girls giggle.

Sarah Estrela, 13, turns to Gigi. "Doesn't this remind you of the walk in sixth grade?" Sarah asks. "Remember when we were laughing at the eighth grade?"

The girls fall silent. Now, they are the eighth grade. The girls are intensely aware that their last days at Slater are slipping by. For Gigi and her best friends, the end of middle school also means the end of seeing each other every day. Gigi will attend a private all-girls school in Providence, Lincoln School. Sarah was also accepted, but is waiting to hear if she will receive financial aid. Brigid Fonseca is moving to Woonsocket. Allison Logan will attend Shea High School.

"Though it's hard, I must say I leave here with a smile from ear to ear, because I truly had the time of my life," Gigi says in her class yearbook, in which she is named "Most determined to succeed."

"Since the end of April, they have been saying, 'Oh my gosh, it's going so fast,' " said Karen Brochu, Gigi's math teacher, as she watches Gigi and her friends play kickball. "They say, 'This is so sad.' And I tell them, 'No tears yet.' "

But the tears are near.

"Honors night next Wednesday," says Ms. Brochu. "That will be the beginning of the tears."

DAVID DENNIS, 14, is ready for summer.

Summer means earning pocket money by painting a neighbor's house, camping with his family on weekends and driving on a go-cart track in Connecticut whenever possible. He will also be running and working out this summer, preparing for freshman football at Middletown High School in the fall. David has played baseball in the spring, but wants more time for go-cart racing next year, so he decided to try football. "They said I should be a linebacker," he says.

David is already over middle school.

David's last day of classes at Gaudet Middle School passes in a blur. Final exams are over. All that's left are a few housekeeping details, cleaning out lockers, organizing paperwork, signing a few more yearbooks.

"Hi Sebbie," David writes to his friend Sebastian Raposo. "Peace out. From your Redneck Bro, David Dennis."

His last cafeteria lunch is identical to dozens before it: chicken nuggets with ketchup, a salad with French dressing and chocolate milk, and he sits with the same group of boys he has eaten with for most of eighth grade.

But the lunch table has changed in recent months, occasionally including girls.

"We are not going out right now," David says defensively when a tall girl with dark hair gets up from the table. "She's going away for the summer."

Sebastian bemoans his lack of a girlfriend.

"I have to build up my biceps," he says.

"What biceps," David replies.

Sebastian rolls his eyes, and flips through the yearbook.

One page is full of baby pictures. But not David's.

"I made sure my mom didn't get the memo about that," David says.

David's last class of the day is social studies with Dan Seger.

"Clearly at the end of eighth grade, you have unlimited, sage-like wisdom," Mr. Seger says. "Your obligation is to pass this knowledge on to next year's eighth graders."

Mr. Seger instructs the students to make posters, giving tips on how to survive the last year of middle school, how to deal with teachers and what the "unwritten rules" are.

"Students will read these on the first day of school next year," Mr. Seger says.

David and his friend Kevin Chesney grab a bunch of magic markers. They start with advice from comedian Jeff Foxworthy:

"If your mom and dad still drive you to school, pull your pants up. You are not a gangster!"

MAKING FRIENDS did not come easily to Jennifer Callaghan.

At the beginning of sixth grade at Knotty Oak Middle School in Coventry, Jenn was lonely.

Then one day in December, Jenn noticed a boy had fallen asleep in geography class, and she leaned over to wake him up. The boy was Chris Schuman.

"I asked him if he wanted to be my friend," she says. "I was in desperate need of a friend."

A little later, Jenn met Tiffany Tarbox and Dan Balcom, and the four became inseparable. They eat lunch together every day and are accepting of one another's diverse interests: Tiffany's artwork, Chris' Goth style, Dan's passion for fishing, Jenn's love for computer games.

"They're just people I feel so familiar with," Jenn says.

Over the past two and a half years, Jenn's friends have grown increasingly important to her.

"She's become more of a teenager, confiding more in her friends and less in her family," says Jenn's mother, Pamela C. Greshan. "She used to tell me a lot, but I've noticed in the past year, she's been telling Tiffany everything."

Before Jenn leaves the eighth grade, she must complete a scrapbook reflecting on her three years at Knotty Oak. Full of essays, letters, illustrations, photographs, poems and song lyrics, the scrapbook counts as her final exam in English.

"This is a time of huge change in their lives," said Danielle Dupuis, Jenn's English teacher. "For them to sit down and think about what the past three years have meant and the ways they have changed and what their goals are for their future -- it's amazing."

Jenn's class started working on the scrapbooks last month, and Jenn has to finish by June 16 -- her last day of school.

"I used to think the world revolved around popularity," Jenn writes for an assignment. "Now I think not following a fad is cool."

Jenn, 13, knows she has changed a lot at Knotty Oak. "I'm not as shy anymore," she says. "I'm smarter. I'm a little more aware of the world around me."

One of the scrapbook assignments is to write a letter to an incoming sixth grader, giving advice to ease the transition to middle school.

"Finally, the 411 on the hardest thing in school: social problems," Jenn writes. "Personally, I have the quality over quantity rule. I have a few good friends. Don't stress if you don't make a friend right away. I didn't meet a single friend 'till December."

ADAM LITTLEFIELD and his friends enter Curtis Corner's cafeteria. White Christmas lights hang from the ceiling and blue and white tablecloths -- the school colors -- cover the tables. Bouquets of ballpoint pens and blue and white balloons serve as centerpieces. Tonight, the eighth graders get their yearbooks.

"The lady I went to for my hair asked, 'So what prom are you going to?' and I'm like, 'I'm not going to a prom,' " says a girl as she walks toward the girls' bathroom with a group of friends.

Music fills the cafeteria. Adam shakes his head. "We spend $250 on a D.J. and no one dances."

Girls stand in clusters, taking pictures with digital cameras, while the boys hit the food tables, devouring pizza strips and brownies.

"This is my favorite event of the year," says Adam's English teacher, Karen Discuillo. "It's the last time you get to spend with the kids and they ask you to sign their yearbooks. Just to see them together and dressed up and enjoying the night. They are so grownup."

Ms. Discuillo says she usually ends up in tears by the end of the night.

"We transform the cafeteria, but they transform themselves when they dress up," she says.

Out on the dance floor, a few students start dancing to pop songs by Kelly Clarkson, Will Smith and Shakira. A group of boys begins sucking the helium out of the balloons and talking in high-pitched voices. Adam seeks out Emily Cotter -- the same girl he sent a valentine to in February -- and they talk and laugh.

One by one, the eighth grade homerooms are called up to pick up their yearbooks.

Students use one another's backs to write messages as they stand on the dance floor. They sprawl out on the tables, pens racing over the pages. They scribble into yearbooks on their laps.

"Have a great summer."

"You're a major hottie."

"You always make me laugh."

"I hope we get some classes together next year."

Adam's homeroom is one of the last to receive yearbooks. He is first in line when his class is called. He quickly writes his name on the first page, then starts looking for his friends.

He's already signed Emily's yearbook, but now he's looking for her to sign his.

JUNE 7 IS honors night at Slater Junior High. Gigi DeBarros dresses with care, layering a chocolate brown crocheted cardigan over a white shirt and matching brown cropped trousers. Her mother, Laura, fixes a couple of Gigi's braids before they leave home.

"That's Gigi," Laura says. "She always wants it perfect."

Slater does not have an eighth-grade promotion or graduation ceremony. Instead, the honors night and the school dance a couple of nights later serve as the formal goodbyes.

Gigi and her youngest sister, Itati, 9, say goodbye to their four sisters, and Laura drives them to the ceremony. Gigi's father, Aristides, is already asleep, as he has to get up at 2 a.m. for his trucking job.

In the auditorium they sit near Gigi's closest friends -- Sarah, Allison and Brigid. Some of the girls are already emotional.

"It's just so sad because everyone's going to different schools, and we're probably not going to see everyone again," Sarah says. "This is the last step before high school."

Gigi receives several awards, both for academics and for her involvement in school activities.

Then Slater's principal, Meredith Caswell, announces that the school's seven major awards will now be given out. She will present the Thomas J. Duffy School Spirit Award.

"This award is named after a principal who loved this school, who is in his 80s now, and who hired me as an English teacher here in 1975," Mrs. Caswell says. The award goes to "the biggest cheerleader for this school."

She begins describing the student who will receive the award this year.

"If you asked me a year ago if this student would receive this award, I'd have said no," Mrs. Caswell says. "She came into my office and said, 'I hate middle school. It's too hard.' She was a bundle of nerves."

Laura DeBarros begins weeping. Looking at her mother, Gigi's eyes fill with tears.

"We kept saying, 'You can do it,' " Mrs. Caswell continues. "Her mother kept saying, 'You can do it.' And she's come a long way, baby.

"She's done it. She's an honor's student and a cheerleader and member of the mock trial team. She comes from a caring family. And she's got more school spirit than anyone in here."

Gigi's classmates begin cheering and applauding.

Wiping away tears, Gigi hugs Mrs. Caswell as she accepts the award.

"You feel so happy," Laura says later. "You are proud of yourself and your daughter."

Gigi was ill with viral meningitis the first part of seventh grade and fell behind in her school work. She felt overwhelmed. "She thought she'd never catch up," Laura says.

But in eighth grade, Gigi changed. Her grades went up. She became more involved with school activities. Her friendships deepened. A month ago, Gigi found out she had received a full scholarship to Lincoln School.

"She worked for it," Laura says of all of her daughter's accomplishments.

Receiving the school spirit award acknowledges something more for Gigi's mother.

"It means I did my best and she did her best," Laura says. "I didn't let her down."

DAVID DENNIS compromises with his mother, Claudette, and agrees to wear khakis instead of jeans to his eighth-grade graduation.

Some of his Gaudet classmates wear ties, but David has on a neatly pressed plaid shirt unbuttoned over a T-shirt. Girls wear sundresses and sandals.

Parents wait in the back of the cafeteria, which doubles as an auditorium, as the students begin walking in with their homerooms.

"Am I ready for him to be in high school?" Claudette muses. "No way."

David is ready. He already finds middle school too confining.

"You have more freedom at the high school," he says.

Mr. Seger, in jacket and tie, says it is hard for him and the other teachers to say goodbye. "You spend a year developing these relationships, so for me it is difficult to see them walk across the stage," he says.

Mr. Seger is not fooled by the cool act of the eighth graders. "They'll try to come across as 'This is no big deal,' but you can see the excitement inside. They know it's a big deal," he says. "Look at how they're dressed."

Teachers and classmates speak about memories, the future, their hopes. Student Jordan Lee gets a laugh when she talks about visiting Middletown High School the previous week, and how big and confusing the building seemed.

"Not only that, the lockers seemed big enough to hold a freshman, like the rumors we've all been hearing recently," she says.

Mary Nassaney, who oversees Gaudet's two middle school teams, gives the closing remarks in a light, but controlled voice.

Change is exciting, but it can also be frightening and difficult, she says. The students before her have changed -- physically, emotionally and academically -- since she met them four years ago, as fifth graders.

She gives them some advice she says they can count on: Be kind. Make good friends. Be honest. Your family will always be there for you, and so will the teachers at Gaudet.

At the end of the ceremony, Claudette leans in to pat David on the shoulder, and looks at his certificate. David mingles with a few friends and says he might go to a classmate's house that afternoon for a graduation party. All around him, parents are hugging their kids, students are taking pictures of one another, and teachers start cutting a big cake. Mrs. Nassaney dabs at her eyes as she chats with students and teachers.

The last day of school is no big deal, David says.

But when Claudette suggests they leave, he resists, and heads back over to his friends.

"He says he wants to stay for a while," his mother says.

JENN CALLAGHAN will miss the last two days of school. She doesn't mind. Her father, Alan, is taking her to Washington, D.C., for a week to celebrate the end of middle school. It will be Jenn's first time in the capitol, and she and her dad are planning on seeing all the sights: the monuments, the Smithsonian, Arlington Cemetery, the White House and the National Zoo.

"I'm excited to go to Washington," Jenn says. "The only thing I'm kind of sad about is losing contact with my friends over the summer. We don't see each other that much."

This summer, Jenn will work as a counselor-in-training at Roger Williams Park Zoo's camp for younger children, Monday through Friday. Her grandparents will drive her to Providence each day. On Sundays, Jenn will serve as a member of Zoo Crew, a yearlong program for high school students who help provide enrichment programs to zoo visitors. That leaves only Saturdays to relax and see friends and family.

"I'd rather be busy, though, or I'd just get bored," she says.

Her last day of classes flies by. The last period, Jenn takes a science test, grabs a garbage bag full of her locker stuff and heads for the bus.

The high point of the day, she says, was lunch.

"I got to see all my friends together, and we just hung out," Jenn says. One friend, Ashley Ouellette, is moving to North Carolina. Jenn's other friends will go to Coventry High School with her, but she knows she won't see them much until the fall.

"It's sort of like breaking up," Jenn says. "We've been so tightly knit together. When we separate, it's weird."

Jenn has faith that she, Tiffany, Dan and Chris will stay close in high school.

"We know it will be different," she says. "But we will still have each other."

AT 9:30 WEDNESDAY morning, the first day of summer, Adam Littlefield's class lines up for the procession to the field behind Curtis Corner.

"Straight line, please. No gum," says assistant principal Kathy Egan.

"In less than an hour you will be ninth graders," she tells the class of 170 students. "You'll do a great job. Remember to smile."

The class heads out into the sunshine. Parents and grandparents have already assembled on the field and are seated in lawn chairs. Adam and his class file into bleachers as the school band plays "Pomp and Circumstance."

Adam wears a blue oxford, khakis and a blue and green stripped tie. His hair has already begun to lighten from the sun, as he now spends most of his spare time in his Boston Whaler on Salt Pond across the street from his house.

The morning is warm with a cool breeze. In flowered dresses and colorful ties, the students face their families and take their seats quietly, waiting for the speeches to begin.

"I wish I could do all these years all over again," says Adam's mother, Maureen, as she surveys the class. "I wish it could stay like this forever."

jjordan@projo.com / (401) 277-7254

CHAT

Parents, what's your greatest fear about your child's transition from middle school to high school? What will you do to help them get ready during this summer? What would you have done differently about your child's eighth-grade experience?

Providence Journal education writer Jennifer D. Jordan has spent the last six months following eighth graders David, Gigi, Adam and Jennifer and their families. Join Jordan for a discussion about the end of middle school on Tuesday at noon at www.projo.com.

EXTRA

See more photographs by Journal photographer Kathy Borchers, recap the series and share your eighth-grade experiences.

www.projo.com/eighthgrade

 


Online at: http://www.projo.com/education/content/projo_20060625_8grade25.17be32e.html