Link Crew, the national orientation and mentoring program, is now in its 16th year at West Hartford’s Hall High School.

By Ronni Newton

Members of the Class of 2030 were welcomed to Hall High School this year by a dedicated group of upperclassmen who applied to be selected, attended training, and then volunteered as members of Link Crew, an international orientation and mentoring program now in its 16th year as a back-to-school tradition in West Hartford.

Caitlin Merriman, a social worker at Hall, is a Link Crew coordinator at Hall this year along with math teacher Bethany Brown and school counselor Emmalee Stewart.

“Our 91 junior/senior link leaders assisted 343 freshmen with transitioning to Hall during their orientation [on] Monday, Aug. 24,” said Merriman. In addition, Link Leaders also assisted students in grades 10 through 12 who transferred into Hall during a session on Tuesday, Aug. 25, prior to the official first day of school on Aug. 26.

Orientation activities take place as one large group, but the students are also broken up into smaller groups that engage in ice breakers and take school tours and have conversations about making connections, joining clubs, and sharing successful habits for high school.

Over the summer, a letter was sent to all families new to the school. It contained the following information about the program: “As you may know, our school participates in the national Link Crew Transition Program, an organization whose sole purpose is to help new students feel welcomed, connected, and successful in high school. The Link Crew orientation and transition program is entirely student-led. It is designed to support incoming 9th graders by pairing them with a trained junior or senior Link Leader during their first year of high school. Link Leaders are responsible upperclassmen who have been hand-selected from a large pool of applicants and have met the qualifications as positive role models and leaders on our campus.”

Link Crew doesn’t stop with orientation. The program sets the tone for a successful year through email connections as well as follow up through academic and social activities.

“Coming up on Thursday, Sept. 24, 2026, Link Crew Leaders will be hosting a Freshman Music Bingo social event with Wild Boolms Entertainment from 6-8:30 p.m.,” said Merriman. “We also plan to continue our ‘Cookies and Cram’ midterm review sessions in January, as well as many other events.

Conard High School also instituted a Link Crew program a few years after Hall, and West Hartford’s middle schools use WEB (Where Everybody Belongs), a similar peer group orientation program founded by the same national company, for orientation of rising sixth graders.

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