Weighing pros, cons of Massapequa’s 9th-grade Ames school

I go to a unique public school in my town of Massapequa. The Ames Campus of Massapequa High School is one school just for ninth grade because there wasn’t enough room for ninth-graders in the high school or middle school buildings.

There are positive and negative things about being just one grade. One negative thing is that there are only 550 kids in the grade, so it’s just the same faces every day, which can feel boring in some ways. But because it is just one grade and small, it is easy to get around and make friends, which can be hard for some students.

Another positive thing is that Ames and the teachers and staff help prepare the students for the high school, which can be intimidating to some kids. But other students just want to be in the high school already and feel older. For example, in the high school you get to leave for lunch and go home to eat, go to lunch with friends or just get outside for a break. But in Ames, you can’t go outside the school to eat lunch.

Another negative is that when you do sports or participate in clubs after school, you have to go all the way to the high school, so you have to take the bus or get a ride from a parent, which can be inconvenient for students and adults.

So it is positive and negative in many different ways, but it is all for a reason and will help make students better and more mature.