Trojan Charge: Students get a first taste of the possibilities of what lies in store for them in their new world the next four years at Chesterton High School

Tom Keegan
Onwardtrojans.com

It didn’t take long for the first reminder that she’s not in middle school anymore to hit Chesterton High School incoming freshman Olivia Goodwin.
“Just how big the place is,” Goodwin said at the end of Trojan Charge, the school’s freshman orientation day. “I wasn’t expecting it to be this big, but then we got inside and looked at our schedules. I was a little lost. I was hanging on for dear life.”
At the end of a day full of informative sessions, the students followed their schedules and were given five minutes to go from one class to the next. Non-freshmen wearing white shirts served as mentors, so Goodwin knew where to go when she was lost, and the mentors were happy to help.
The most recurring theme of the day: Everyone is here to help you.
“Most of us are not scary and we want to see you succeed,” Mrs. Blythe told the students during the academic tips session she shared with Mrs. Arizzi, who told students, “Asking for help is really important. We are not mind readers. We don’t know when you are struggling with something. Make sure you’re asking questions in class.”
Mr. Blumenthal, an assistant principal, urged students to make positive choices and let it be known that everyone enters as a freshman with “a clean slate,” regardless of how well or poorly things went at previous schools.
“I want you to know that we don’t get reports on any of you in advance,” Blumenthal said. “So, if you had a really rough eighth-grade year, I don’t get a pack of information like ‘Oh, Mr. Blumenthal, these are the incoming freshmen you have to worry about.’ You have a clean slate.”
That’s about to change now that they are in high school.
“Now we’re keeping score,” Blumenthal said.
He then shared how poor choices can linger in a way that can resonate forever: “One of the questions that every college asks, and now the military: ‘Have you ever been suspended or expelled while in high school?’ You have to answer honestly. You have to tell them, and for what. That means that a college or the military are going to know whether you’ve made good choices while you were here. That could impact your ability to go where you want to go and become the things you want to become, based on the choices you’re making now at 14, 15, 16 years old.”
He followed that warning with a sharp turn.
“The good news is, we are all in this together,” Blumenthal said. “What that means is that every single week while you are in high school, every week your teachers are meeting and talking about how to help you. I know because I’m in those meetings. I’m asking the same questions of teachers: ‘What are you doing to help your students to be successful?’”
Blumenthal covered something as simple as how to be an efficient, safe pedestrian walking the halls from one class to the next: “We walk on the right side of the hall. Don’t walk on the left. And don’t stop!”
Mrs. Hawkins, an assistant principal, gave a presentation on dual credit courses and demonstrated how much money those going to college can save by taking them. Goodwin, who plays the bass drum in the marching band, and Jesse Arevalo, who is on the boys’ swim team, both found this to be the most interesting information of the day.
“I liked the dual credit thing,” said Goodwin, who is taking her first one this semester, a photography class from Mr. Schultz. “That’s why my mom signed me up because we both agreed it was going to help.”
Hawkins said that in the 2023-24 school year 13 students completed the Indiana Core Curriculum, the equivalent of one year of college credit, a tuition savings of at least $10,000. In 2024-25, there were 56 with a possibility of a 57th (pending a test result) who completed the IC.
Arevalo was excited to hear, “The ICC, you can go to any Indiana (state) university with it and automatically get accepted.”
The importance of joining extracurricular activities was stressed throughout the day, one of the benefits being meeting and befriending upperclassmen with common interests. Not counting the 22 sports, there were signup sheets at the fieldhouse for 66 different clubs and organizations. A sampling: Bible Study Club, Business Professionals of America, Singing Sands Yearbook, Student Athletic Trainers, WDSO.
A New Student Guide was distributed to each freshman and those who read it learned that as juniors and seniors they will have the option of taking classes at the Porter County Career and Technical Center in 25 different fields, including Auto Services Technology, Civil Construction, Electronics and Computer Technolgy, HVAC, Law Enforcement Careers Academy , Emergency Medical Services/Fire & Rescue, Graphic Imaging Technology, and Veternary.
Plenty of time to think about those options. First, the freshmen had to worry about getting the basics down.
“I don’t think C is down this way,” one student said to the other as they tried to find their next class. “I think it’s in the other direction … I think. … No, wait.”