The John Carroll community welcomed the Class of 2027 at Freshman Orientation beginning on Monday, August 28. They spent two days learning about what it means to be a Patriot.

              This year’s orientation was split into two days. The first day focused on helping the new students get accustomed to the rules and policies. They also had an opportunity to meet their new teachers. The second day was all about their summer reading book Inside Out and Back Again. They visited five different department sessions and completed activities that connected each department to the book.

              Freshman Summer Reading Coordinator Lindsey Galicki explained that the purpose of the first day was “to introduce students to the academic expectations at John Carroll, and the style of instruction they can expect to receive.”

              After the first day’s opening session, the freshmen met with their new advisors before being split up into groups. They then went to multiple stations including Chapel Chat, Technology, Meeting with the Counselors, and the Patriot Journey. Each student got to meet the faculty and staff and find their classes.

              The SGA and Peer Ministry groups volunteered both days to aid the new students.

              A new change that was discussed with the freshmen was the uniform. The Class of 2027 will phase in changes while the upperclassman uniform was only modified slightly.

              Assistant Principal Danica Attanasio explained, “One of the main things is no more quarter zips. The leggings or tights have actually changed for everybody in the winter, and the length of the skirt is a change for the ninth graders.”

              The second day began with new students meeting with their advisors before the opening session.

              SGA and Peer Ministry volunteers then gathered small groups of students and escorted them to the Academic Wing to participate in five department sessions in the areas of math/science, social studies, English, religion, and foreign language. Each activity completed had something that connected each department to the book.

              Math and science teachers organized an activity where students were tasked with building a boat out of foil and had to place coins on it until it sank. Then, they removed the coins that sat in the boat and measured the mass. This activity related to the novel as  people on the boats were immigrants.

              “Each department found a way to showcase their academic subject matter through the text,” said Mrs. Galicki. “The English department did a Found Poem. They found poems in the text that appeal to the teachers and the department for various reasons, and students received a bunch of different clips and snippets from those poems that they had to put together to make a new poem.”

              Group leaders then took the students to the auditorium for a debriefing session to continue to make connections to the novel.

             Students went to lunch before returning to advisory.

            To end the day, freshmen and advisors participated in a Learning Mass.