Sixth Graders Enjoy Ice Cream Social
The Eastchester Middle School Cafeteria bustled with activity after school last Thursday afternoon, as sixth graders strained to lean across lunch tables and compare their guesses on various middle school factoids like which of their new teachers has a fear of clowns.
On September 23, Josephine Logan and Adam Chertok—co-chairs of the middle school Student Leadership Council—helped welcome Eastchester Middle School’s newest students to the building with the Sixth Grade Ice Cream Social, a long-running tradition for incoming middle schoolers that was revived this year.
Over the years, the event has become an important rite of passage for middle schoolers, helping them acclimate not only to their new school building but to their new classmates as well.
Chertok pointed out that while many of Eastchester’s sixth-graders may have been classmates at Waverly, others had spent the better part of the last four years apart while attending one of Eastchester’s two other elementary schools.
“The goal is mostly to get these students from Anne Hutchinson and Greenvale together,” said Chertok. “It’s basically like a mixer.”
Sixth graders were assigned to random groups to work together to answer trivia questions about middle school faculty.
“There are a few things we definitely carry from year to year,” said Logan. “And having them guess interesting facts about teachers is one of those things.”
“It helps to get them more comfortable with the new staff that they’ll start seeing in the building,” added Chertok. “So that really just helps to welcome them into the middle school.”
As for the teachers, Logan said, they were delighted to see the ice cream social make a comeback after two years.
“It was absolutely awesome and you can really tell that the kids needed it; they’re just desperate for interaction,” said Logan. “But for us I know we’ve missed it too, it was terribly missed and we’re happy to have it back.”