Aside from Country Day, there are many other K-12 schools that work hard to retain eighth graders.

And the methods they use reflect the characteristics of each school.

At the prestigious Baldwin School for girls in Bryn Mawr, Penn., Sally Powell, head of school, invites eighth graders in groups of six for tea and cookies to chat about their transition to high school.

“We talk about the things they love, particular anecdotes that have made their experience special. And I always ask for ideas about how we can do better,” Powell, an SCDS teacher and administrator from 1993-1999, said in an e-mail interview.

“We always stress the importance of their leadership and try to focus on the many traditions in the upper school that they can look forward to.”

The five-story chateau-style Baldwin School has a number of traditions, as it was established over 122 years ago.  

“Banner Day” is one such tradition and important in the retention process, said Eric Benke, director of upper school at Baldwin.

Each high-school grade is assigned one of five colors successively every year. Then the class designs its banner. 

According to Powell, the students get really excited. 

“As freshmen, the girls spend the first semester designing and creating, under a cloak of secrecy, a banner that depicts how they want to be seen in the school,” she said. 

Eighth graders observe from the sidelines as the freshmen introduce their banner in an elaborate ceremony. Then the banner is hung in the Assembly Room until they graduate four years later.

Senior Noelle Niu said she loved all the Baldwin traditions and never considered going anywhere else for high school.

About 10-15 percent of each eighth-grade class leave, Benke said. 

“Some girls move away, some are not finding success here, and some just want a change,” Benke said. 

A couple thousand miles away The Oregon Episcopal School in rainy Portland (OES) showcases  its special Winterim to attract the eighth graders.

Winterim is a weeklong period (March 11-18) before Spring Break in which students delve into one or two special activities or take a trip.

Sarah Marshall, who graduated from OES in 2006, recalls vividly all four of her Winterim experiences. 

Her freshman year, Marshall participated in a class called “Reading and Writing at the Beach.” Sixteen students spent a week on the Oregon coast, writing poetry and taking walks on the beach.

“We did all that sensitive high schooler stuff. I don’t think I appreciated it enough when I was 14,” Marshall said. 

Her sophomore year she went to Montreal to practice her French; her junior year she took a “Savoir Faire” class to learn how to change a tire, write a resume and shop at Goodwill. During her senior year, Marshall interned in Hawaii for a documentarist analyzing the pidgin language. 
This year choices include field hockey, ice cream making, Chemistry for Beauty, traditional Thai massage, or Quilting and Trendy Clothing Made Easy.

Or the OES students can travel to England (to study its history and culture), to Uganda (to teach and to work in an orhanage), to the Napa Valley (to cycle), to Phoenix, Ariz. (to watch spring training), to Alabama (to visit cornerstones of the civil-rights movement) or to the nearby Wallawa Mountains (to ski).

Eighth graders hear all about the week at the Winterim Assembly.

As far as retention goes, Seder says OES’s numbers change from year to year.

At Germantown Academy in Fort Washington, Penn., the school doesn’t work very hard at retention because most eighth graders come back. 

There is only one organized event  in April for eighth-grade parents to inform them about the transition from middle school to high school.

“The foremost concern seems to be course placement. There’s usually a great deal of excitement associated with ‘moving up’ to ninth grade, so we don’t need to sell our eighth graders on it,” said teacher David Hillinck, SCDS high-school principal from 1994-97. 

According to Hillinck 99 percent—and sometimes 100—of Germantown eighth graders move on to the upper school. 

“Occasionally we lose a student whose family moves. Or if the school concludes that a student would not succeed in upper school, then he or she is not invited to return,” he said. 

Hillinck said students may switch for programmatic reasons also.

“Germantown Academy doesn’t have a squash program, but Chestnut Hill Academy, a nearby boys’ school, does, and that might encourage one of our guys to switch,” he said. 

Hillinck remembered that one year when he was at Country Day there were too many eighth graders who wanted to move up, so they had to be selected.

“Otherwise, I remember that it could be difficult to sell the high-school experience to some families. That was unfortunate, because I was and remain convinced that SCDS offers a truly outstanding 9-12 program,” Hillinck said. 

He hypothesizes that retention will remain an issue at SCDS until there is more than one independent school option in Sacramento, as there is in Philadelphia.

“Ironically, having a direct competitor, another non-sectarian day school, would create a more vibrant market for independent education in general, and places like SCDS and its competitors would become more attractive,” Hillinck said.