Emotions Run High As Freshmen Enter Stevenson

Some admitted to being a little scared, others seemed excited and one even missed the bus.

It was all part of first-day jitters experienced by more than 950 freshmen who got their first taste of during Monday's freshman orientation.

Their maiden voyage was smoothed by 110 members of the . The upperclassmen met the first-years when they arrived by bus at 7 a.m.

Shouts of “yeah Stevenson,” and “welcome freshmen,” greeted students as they stepped off the buses.

But not everyone chose the same mode of transit to school.

“I missed my bus,” confessed Keaton Chappel of Buffalo Grove. “I got a ride and my dad got mad.”

She and her friends still made it unscathed and in time to join fellow members of the class of 2015 as they picked up their official documents in the gymnasium, met their mentors and retreated to classrooms where they checked schedules, picked up their books, got acquainted with their freshmen mentors and embarked on tours of the school.

“I’ve never been so scared in my life,” said Alesi Vazquez, as he anxiously looked around the noisy gym filled with freshmen and volunteers handing out documents. “I know maybe three or four people here.”

He attended Hawthorn Middle School in Vernon Hills last year and had friends Daniel Ioffe and David Kim at his side during orientation.

Not everyone felt the same fear, though.

“I’m not scared,” said Alexandra Meyer, who learned about the school through her older brother and sister.

She said mentors who rode the bus helped.

“They told us not to be scared,” she said. “And that’s helping.”

Dana Podell, one of the mentors who greeted freshmen as they left the bus, said it was their job “to get them used to the school.”

Melissa Weinberg, another greeter at the bus, could remember her own first day.

“I remember being so scared my first year,” she said.

Retired teacher Dolores Fischer designed the Freshman Mentor Program and continues to head it up.

Of the 260 students who applied for the program this year, only 110 were picked, she said. It is designed to provide freshmen with an ongoing support group and a comprehensive transition from junior high into high school.