Joliet fifth-graders get inside look at Washington Junior High

JOLIET — A group of Edna Keith fifth-graders met Friday with the principal of a school they will attend next year.

That school – Washington Junior High School and Academy – was a place where they will grow mentally, emotionally and spiritually, said Michael Latting, the school’s principal, who sat across from the students inside the gym.

“You come to me as fifth-graders,” Latting said through a microphone inside the school gym. “You will leave me as gentlemen and young women.”

Edna Keith students and hundreds of others from Woodland, Culbertson and Eisenhower schools – that feed into the junior high school – visited Washington as part of the annual Step Up Day.

Students get an inside look at Washington as part of the event that allows to get to know the faculty, the facility and the students as they learn what will be expected of them.

Washington eighth-graders served as tour guides. They brought groups of students into classrooms, the library, cafeteria, theater and gym. They also showed them how to use lockers and the rules for them.

“You should clean out your locker periodically just to make sure you’re organized,” said one eighth-grade guide who showed a group his locker.

Inside teacher Michelle Lingle’s class, the students got tips from Washington students on how to succeed at the school.

Some of them told them about how to use their identification cards, not to procrastinate with homework, to watch their grades if they plan on participating in sports and not to be too worried at school.

“We don’t want you to be scared. We you want to do your job,” Lingle said.

In his talk with the students before the tour, Latting said Washington students don’t typically carry bookbags in the hallway for safety reasons but this year he will allow them to use clear plastic bookbags.

“Your safety is my ultimate, No. 1 concern. Nobody is going to bring anything into the building that I don’t know about,” Latting said.

He also told them he will not allow one child to steal education from other children.

He explained that if they disrupt in classrooms or do something inappropriate that will stop a teacher from teaching, they were stealing education from the rest of the students.

It will be up to the students to obey the rules the right way, he said.

“Is this clear with everyone?” he asked.

The students either nodded or said yes.