Head start on high school.

Byline: Anne Williams The Register-Guard

For 40 incoming South Eugene High School freshmen, the maze of hallways inside the monolithic, two-story building will be familiar terrain when they show up for the first day of school in September.

They'll also know the faces and personalities of a handful of the school's teachers, including Elton Villanueva, a big, affable psychology teacher who plays indie rock and reggae on his classroom stereo and leads fast-paced, playful get-to-know-you games that the kids love.

Forging those connections - with the teachers, with each other, with the building itself - could be the most crucial element of the Eugene School District's Summer Bridge Program, launched this year at all four high schools to help ease what can be a perilous transition into ninth grade.

Now in the second of four weeks, the program blends reading and math instruction with "affective" education, which focuses on interpersonal skills, self-esteem, problem solving and decision making.

Each school has between 30 and 40 students enrolled - all of them there by invitation, said South Eugene Assistant Principal Eric Anderson, who was among a group of administrators and teachers who designed the program.

The kids run the gamut, he said: Some are close to failing, others get straight As. Some are painfully shy, others are class clowns. Some admit to being petrified of high school, others say they're there because they want the half-credit or were bored sitting around home. Some have learning disabilities.

But all of them, for whatever reason, were a worry to a teacher, a counselor or a parent.

"We'd love to have this program for every kid, but we could only take this many," Anderson said. "So we talked with the middle schools about students who might need some support, which might feel lost in a school of 1,700. A lot of students come into this school and they feel overwhelmed."

Research bears out that ninth grade is a pivotal year in the life of a teenager, one that often determines whether a student will make it to graduation. According to one frequently cited study, more than 60 percent of high school dropouts failed at least 25 percent of their credits in the ninth grade.

With new, more stringent state graduation requirements kicking in over the next several years, district administrators agreed it was important to offer the extra support students need to succeed, even though Eugene has an enviable graduation rate of close to 90 percent.

"I think it's one of the really exciting things that we're doing in the high school world," Laurie Moses, director of high school services, said of the $120,000 program, which probably wouldn't have been funded were it not for the state's comparatively generous biennial allocation to schools.

The program differs at each site, with some schools focusing more on academics and others on interpersonal skills. South Eugene's falls into the latter category.

Divided into three groups of 12 or 13, the students begin their day at 8:30 a.m. with free breakfast and then rotate among three 55-minute classes: Villanueva's Affective Education Gregory Dunkin's Food in Your Future, and a blended language arts and math class, taught by Tim Bjornstad and Alpha Wilson.

Freshman counselor Travis Johnson is there to back up teachers, assist with administrative duties and handle behavior problems. Now that they know him, Johnson hopes kids will feel comfortable coming to him during the school year.

"I didn't even meet my counselor until they rounded up my grades for graduation," said Johnson, a 1996 South Eugene graduate who struggled with his studies.

Fridays are for field trips - last week it was the ropes course at Spencer Butte, and today they'll visit the Splash! Lively Swim Park in Springfield.

In Dunkin's class this week, students made egg flower soup and garlic mashed potatoes. Many have never so much as chopped a vegetable, and Dunkin hopes they'll leave with some basic cooking and sanitation skills, and perhaps a taste for entrepreneurship.

Monitoring a pot of boiling soup with two other apron-clad boys, Shabazz Muhammad, who went to Roosevelt Middle School, said Dunkin's and Villanueva's classes are tied for his favorite. He heard about the program from a friend, he said, and wanted the half-credit. But it's also helped ease his jitters about starting high school.

"I was nervous, because it was so big and I didn't really know anyone here," he said.

Emily Pierce, who went to Spencer Butte, said she was eager to enroll.

"I enjoy this, and I chose to do it," she said. "I think sleeping in is a waste of time."

Villanueva begins each class by inviting kids to leave "warm fuzzies" - hand-written notes expressing affection or gratitude - in personalized, construction-paper pouches tacked up on the wall. Then comes "check-in" - an opportunity for students to quickly share how they're feeling.

Shabazz Muhammad, twisting his hair, said he was feeling "out of place." "I just feel weird today," he said when Villanueva pressed him.

Mia Mickey said she felt "pumped" because her new cell phone had just been delivered. Joe McConnell said he felt exhausted after getting up early for football practice. Villanueva said he felt satisfied, having had his car repaired the day before.

After a quick discussion on the pros and cons of genetic engineering and a writing exercise in which students had to jot down how they'd handle a particular problem, Villanueva had the students toss tennis balls back and forth across the room, catching them in plastic cups. After warming up, they tried the same activity outside on the grass, moving farther and farther apart.

"The little successes," Villanueva explained. "We try to build on those."