Looking forward

Marisa O’Neil

Fifth-graders at Wilson Elementary School will face a whole new world

next year, a world of physical education classes, after-school sports

and -- no recess.

Students got a hint of what they can look forward to as

sixth-graders next year at middle school when TeWinkle Intermediate

School counselors Meghan Hanna and Heather Houvenier visited Wilson

on Monday. What they said drew plenty of gasps of excitement,

nervousness and shock from the anxious students.

“For lunch at TeWinkle, we have pizza and nachos and cookies and

ice cream every day,” Hanna told the fifth-graders.

They gasped in awe at the prospect.

Hanna told the students about clubs at the school, like the Nature

Academy, which goes on special field trips to an astronomy camp and

to Catalina Island. That drew more gasps.

The Club Live after-school program has parties and goes to an

Angels game, she said. Jasmine Dominguez, 10, gasped and grabbed her

friend with excitement.

And the Renaissance Club -- which requires students to get no

grade lower than a C -- gives out passes that lets students go to the

front of the lunch line one day a week or have a night off from

homework. That one drew really big gasps.

“Does a C-minus count?” 11-year-old Matt Castaneda asked.

Turns out it does. And teachers at TeWinkle, Hanna said, know that

some students don’t do as well on tests, so they make sure to give

them the opportunity to perform well on homework.

“It’s very, very, very important that you do all of your homework

every day,” she advised.

Grisel Villafana, 11, wondered if she’d get to write essays at

TeWinkle. Jasmine wanted to know if she’d have homework on Fridays.

Yes, and no, Hanna answered, respectively. But they have to read

every night.

At TeWinkle, Houvenier said, they don’t wear uniforms. The

students let out a relieved sigh when they heard that.

The school does have a dress code, however. That means no sagging

pants, no hats in class and no makeup.

“Do we have school dances?” 10-year-old Yaritca Rentera asked.

She looked a little disappointed when Hanna told her she’d have to

wait until seventh grade for those.

After the counselors left, the buzz of excitement remained as the

students talked among themselves about what’s in store next year.

Before they left, Principal Candy Sperling chipped in with some

friendly advice about the awe-inspiring lunch fare offered at the

school. But her words could apply to everything they’ll face in the

year to come.

“I know we want to try it all, but don’t try it all in one week,”

she said. “Pace yourselves.”

* IN THE CLASSROOM is a weekly feature in which Daily Pilot

education writer Marisa O’Neil visits a campus in the Newport-Mesa

area and writes about her experience.