To help students get ready for their freshman year at IDEA Yukon Preparatory, the campus held its first-ever Fish Camp.
About 95 students turned out to get a glimpse of the school’s culture, meet each other, support staff and teachers Friday. Yukon College Prep Principal Stephanie Eisenmenger said the campus will welcome about 130 freshman for the first day of school Aug. 8.
Students spent some of the morning responding to a survey of what traditions they would like to start, like homecoming and prom, and taking part in a scavenger hunt where they met and took photos with staff, saw where their classes are going to be held and more.
This is the first year IDEA Yukon will open to ninth grade students. IDEA Yukon opened its doors in 2021 with grade levels kindergarten through sixth grade, adding a new grade level each year until it will be fully scaled kindergarten through 12th grade.
This year, IDEA Yukon will serve roughly 1,200 students, grade levels kindergarten through ninth.
Eisenmenger said the students learned about what GPA is and what their graduation plan is going to be.
“We know that the work they’re going to do this year is going to impact their ability to get into college, so we’re trying to train them up and give them the knowledge they need to be successful,” she added.
For the first year, IDEA Yukon has a college counselor, Raquel Gonzales, whose job is to advise kids on what they need to know and do to be successful in college and beyond.
IDEA is committed to a vision of college for all children, its website said. It has intervention courses and summer school to help students pass the STAAR. They are also offering TSI exemption testing and ACT tests.
Eisenmenger said taking the tests makes students more competitive in the college application process.
They also showed the students a video of College Signing Day.
“I see the video of the College Signing Day and it’s so exciting to think that our kids are going to be walking that stage in four years,” Eisenmenger said.
“It’s really exciting to have ninth grade this year because this is where you can start to see all the work that you’ve put in for all the number of years start to really come to fruition as they start to plan their college life. I think it’s really exciting to see them start to see that college going identity for themselves and begin to plan what they want to do with their careers as well,” she added.
Gonzalez said they are very excited to welcome their first ninth-grade class.
“Today we’re just going over some expectations. We gave him an opportunity to mingle with one another and get to know the school,” Gonzales said.
Fish Camp was held last year at IDEA Travis in Midland. They are adding 10th grade this year.
“We’re just going off of that … and we all added in our own little parts of it,” Gonzales said.
Being a smaller campus, she said, students have an opportunity to meet each other in one spot and engage in activities together.
“One, we want them to all have a relationship with one another, for our new students to get to meet our older students and for our older students to serve as leaders. … Two, we want to go ahead and ease those emotions that they may be feeling on their first day of ninth grade, to let them have a little bit of fun before we kick off their first year of high school,” Gonzales said.
Since this is the students’ first year of high school, they are going to be the trailblazers, setting all the traditions moving forward.
This is Gonzales’ first year at an IDEA campus.
“I’m really passionate about their mission for college for all (and) AP (Advanced Placement) courses because I believe if you set the standard high, students are going to meet it,” she said.
Ninth-grader Kelsey Jarvis has been attending IDEA for four years. She previously went to Buice Elementary.
The 14-year-old said going into high school is exciting because of all the new things coming up.
Jarvis added that it is exciting to be part of the founding class because they will get to graduate first and others will be building a base off of this class.
The uniforms are what appeal to Jarvis about IDEA because they seem more “professional.”
Jaykov Carrasco, 14, and a former Buice student, said it was “pretty good to get to be the first graduating class.”
