DECATUR - On Wednesdays, small groups of MacArthur High School students meet with teachers in a program called Bridges.

In these groups, 15 to 20 students do activities, ranging from character education to planning for college and adulthood.

"The basic concept hasn't changed," said Ed Wallis, assistant principal at MacArthur. "Last year, our first year, everybody did basically the same thing. So this year, we put it together in different communities."

MacArthur has organized its students into four communities, one for each grade level. Freshmen, sophomores, juniors and seniors each have their own assistant principal and counselor, and those adults and their teachers will be with them throughout their high school years. The hope is that over that time, strong relationships will form because staff and students will have a chance to get to know each other well. Eisenhower has a similar program, but its small communities are formed around career paths rather than grade level.

Forming the Bridges groups with the same idea, said Principal Dean Schultz, breaks down those numbers into even smaller groups, so that each Bridges group takes that relationship even further.

"When we restructured, we really felt relationships were important, with students, with staff, with everybody," Schultz said.

The assistant principal and counselor have responsibility for about 300 students instead of about 1,200, he said, while the Bridges teacher, with only 15 or 20, spends a half-hour or so every week with their group of students.

"It's a small group of kids they can develop relationships with and mentor, and it's not a class," Schultz said. "They can provide them support, develop relationships with them and help them. So now we've developed a whole other layer of relationships and mentoring."

Last year, Bridges was mostly about character education, with a different theme every week, and all grade levels studied the same lessons. This year, character education remains a significant part of the program, but students also cover other grade-appropriate topics.

Juniors, for example, will spend time working on test-taking skills before the American College Test and Prairie State Achievement Exam in the spring, and seniors will talk about their plans after high school.

By tailoring each grade's program, students will not have to repeat the curriculum each year.

Another new idea is to use the time one Wednesday a month for school clubs to meet. Clubs are forming now for the school year, Wallis said.

vwells@herald-review.com|421-7982