Welcome to Leyden

Welcome+to+Leyden

Zitlali Montiel Martinez, Features Editor, Reporter

Every teen’s nightmare is moving away to a different city, to a different school, and having to make new friends. A new school in general is scary, what if I get lost? What if I don’t have anyone to sit with at lunch? Luckily, East Leyden is helping student transfers slowly transition into their new school.

This year a new program was started with the goal being transitioning transfer students into their new Leyden environment. After looking at information about previous Leyden transfers they found that students were struggling academically.

The new students meet once a month and get a yummy lunch as well as a topic to talk about for that lunch period. “[These topics] are helpful for new students because it’s a scary transition to be new to a school” stated Ms. Huffman. The helpful part of this new program is they meet only during their lunch period so they interact with other students with the same lunch.

In order for the new Leyden students to meet more people, they are encouraged to bring in a friend or two to every meeting.

Cassie Little, a junior transfer from Glenbard South who was having lunch with junior Jodi Dubrock, said, “Before school started I was really nervous about not knowing the building. They had students tour me around, and they have a lot of things explained to me how finals work [here] and what’s going on with homecoming.”

But Little had an advantage, she had a sister that was a senior so she was able to give Cassie a heads up on how Leyden works. She found out that East is a lot bigger than her old school, but a bigger school meant “[more] people being so friendly.” Also, she discovered that it was easy going up to people and asking for directions to her next class

One of the things Leyden is proud of are the different types of programs offered here. Little confessed, “I thought Glenbard South had a lot of programs, [but here] I feel like there’s a lot more opportunities. It’s a lot more electronic. You guys are really involved on Twitter, which is interesting because my school wasn’t like that at all.”

Hopefully this program will continue for the next few years and continue helping new students.