NHS Fusion Group Partners Freshmen With Juniors

By Eliza Hallabeck

A Newtown High School Guidance Office program that partners incoming freshmen with junior students has been in progress for a couple years, but this year the program will continuing branching out even more.

During a recent interview, Guidance Counselor Jeff Tolson said the program is a model for other schools.

“The Fusion group has evolved in the last five years from being a program that was run outside of the school schedule, and outside of our class schedule,” said Mr Tolson. Junior boys are matched with freshmen boys, and junior girls are matched with freshmen girls in the hope of making a positive connection.

“Two years ago, Amanda Walsh from Newtown Youth & Family Services, and Beth Agen, the director of that organization, said, ‘Can we push this thing even more forward?’ Kathy Ostar, the director of Guidance, said, ‘I got it. Why don’t we run it out of homeroom?’”

Implementing the program in homeroom began last year, and this year students from last year’s program also choose to continue meeting in homeroom with their Fusion group partners.

Ms Ostar said adding the program to homeroom gave a contact point for the students daily.

“Mr Tolson has so much energy every morning,” said Ms Ostar, regarding homeroom with the students, “and he is great with the kids.”

Mr Tolson said last year’s success with running the program out of homeroom was an unprecedented success. “Just roughly I would say easily more than half of the kids made a positive connection that stayed and lasted,” he said.

There are about 100 students participating in the program this year.

“As an adult looking in on the program, I can see what they do not know is coming,” Mr Tolson said. “I can see that in a month they will be a whole different group of students who know each other. There is going to be even more intermingling between the juniors and freshmen, and by the end of the year these are going to be lasting friendships that have been formed.”

Mr Tolson said it is exciting to know what is coming, and easy to be thrilled for the students.

Out of a developmental guidance program, which Mr Tolson said is a leader in the state for sophomores and freshmen, the Fusion group is brought in as another option for students to take part.

“In every class we said, ‘This is Fusion. It is a great program. You get community service hours. You’re going to love it. If you think you want to connect to a freshmen and make a difference in the life of someone else, take one of these and fill it out.’ We had a lot of applications,” Mr Tolson said.

With next year being the third year with the program implemented during homeroom, Mr Tolson said he sees room for growth.

“Newtown Youth & Family Services has been supporting this on a grant for the last few years,” said Mr Tolson. “Unfortunately, this year the grant did not come through; however, they have agreed to budget $7,500 to support this program through field trips, activities, etc.”

 This year to match students with one another an outside program called Date Match, a survey company, will match the students after they take a survey. A kick off will be planned to facilitate the match of students in this year’s group.

Last year, activities included going to Ground Zero in New York City, going to an aquarium, holding an in-school field trip where the students participated in group activities, and having last year’s students write letters to this year’s group of students.

This year, he said, other trips could be scheduled.

One personal story Mr Tolson said he remembers was a junior boy and a freshman boy paired up together in the Fusion group.

“They had a great connection with each other, and I was looking at the relationship,” said Mr Tolson. “I was thinking, I would never have paired them up together. I would never have seen it.”

After speaking to the junior boy, the student responded with disbelief. He told Mr Tolson he thought the freshman boy was amazing, and he really enjoyed hanging out with him.

“To me that is kind of the testament to the program,” Mr Tolson said.

At the end of the program last year, Mr Tolson said, the freshmen responded they had enjoyed having a relationship with an older student.

“The juniors said in so many words, ‘I didn’t know I could get this much from giving,’” Mr Tolson. “Really. They said, ‘You helped us, freshmen.’ Those are some powerful words.”