Changes to Link Crew incorporate student input

Link Crew, which has welcomed freshman classes for eight years, has become a Saratoga tradition. However, the program still continues to evolve, using student input to help improve the program.

According to Link Crew co-director Michael Slone, who works as the school’s psychologist,  Freshman Focus, the meeting of Link groups during the first two Monday tutorials, adopted some new practices this year. For example, leaders received outlines of discussion topics ahead of time; in addition, the topics were revised.

“The discussion items were developed this year based on SHS students’ feedback on what they felt would be helpful to freshmen, as well as input from school staff and administrators,” Slone said.

Slone said that changes were made to many sections of the outline, such as ways freshman can get involved with the school, the guidance department’s procedures, and information on respectful ways to talk to teachers.

“We also provided far more specific and step-by-step handouts explaining study strategies, taking and using Cornell Notes and test-taking strategies,” Sloan said.

Link Crew commissioner Courtney Ruppel said another change made to this year’s Link orientation on Aug. 17 was that each Link group was not assigned a classroom.  In previous years, each Link Group had a designated room on campus where they could “play games, answer questions, and have a home base,” according to Ruppel.

Ruppel said the change was made due to unfavorable situations that arose in past years.

“There have been problems with this in the past,” Ruppel said. “For example, profane drawings [on the whiteboards and] lists of ‘good and bad’ teachers, so not having classrooms this year prevented that.”

Link Crew co-director Eileen Allen mentioned that this year, as a result of the different schedule of events, teachers had to be in their classrooms all day on the Friday before school started.

“Teachers needed to be in their classrooms in order to get prepared for the first day of school,” Allen said. “I think it was actually better because it really got students to spread out and see the school.”

According to Allen, other changes to the program were incorporated this year as well, including shortening the training to be one longer afternoon session instead of two shorter ones.

“The other change we made was to shorten orientation by one hour,” Allen said.

The decision to shorten orientation, Allen said, was a result of student input.

“In our evaluations from last year we heard resoundingly that the program would be more effective if it was one hour shorter,” Allen said.  “Kids felt that they were having trouble filling the last hour with activities and they wanted to keep their links engaged.”

A final change involved the way in which the over 100 Link leaders were trained. This year, the activities were taught in stations instead of with the large group, making it “a little easier to understand for the Link Crew leaders,” Allen said.

Already, Allen has begun to consider changes for next year’s program.

“I might consider changing the training to be two days before orientation in order to have time to iron out the wrinkles that inevitably arise,” Allen said.

Nevertheless, Allen thought the program this year went smoothly.

“I think that this year was fantastic,” Allen said.  “The leaders were great mentors and I was so impressed with them as I watched them with their freshman students.”