Sixth graders at Bristow Middle School, as well as at King Philip and Sedgwick, transitioned to middle school this week with the assistance of the WEB program.

By Ronni Newton

The transition from elementary to middle school can be daunting and downright scary, but in West Hartford Public Schools the WEB orientation program – “Where Everybody Belongs” – helps sixth graders at all three middle schools feel welcome from the beginning.

Troy W. Jones, a health and physical education teacher at Bristow Middle School, is in his 25th year teaching in the district. He and special education teacher Mackenzie Fitzgerald are the co-coordinators of Bristow’s WEB program, and Jones was overflowing with excitement about this year’s WEB leaders and the success of the orientation they led on Monday.

“This wasn’t your typical ‘show up for an hour and take an open walk through the building’ orientation with your adults,” Jones said. “This is a student-led, full-fledged party.”

The students applied last spring to become WEB leaders. Most are eighth graders, but a few seventh graders were accepted this year as well. A total of 47 students submitted applications – which included answering questions and submitting a video that’s no longer than 3 minutes and 19 seconds. The length limit is an absolute, Jones said.

From the applications, 18 students were chosen as the WEB leaders for the 2026-2027 school year, and spent two full days training last week. “Built on the belief that students can help students succeed, Mackenzie and I trained these WEB leaders over two six-hour training days in August to guide the incoming sixth graders to discover what it takes to be successful during their transition to middle school and help facilitate sixth grade success,” Jones said.

This year’s leaders are “just an absolutely awesome group,” he said. They worked hard and during their training also asked some tremendous questions of the coordinators that hadn’t been asked by past groups, including strategies for dealing with sixth graders who might be “too energetic.”

The WEB leaders “wanted to make sure the sixth graders got a great experience,” said Jones, and that included making phone calls to every single one of the incoming students last week to personally invite them to orientation. “After the orientation, one mom said the phone call to her daughter had her daughter smiling from ear to ear for the rest of the day,” he said.

In advance, the WEB leaders practiced being able to pronounce the students’ names correctly, too.

More than 100 sixth graders attended on Monday, where the WEB leaders worked in pairs of two, facilitating the four-hour orientation with the support of the coordinators, sign language interpreters, language facilitators, and some building paraprofessionals.

They had a binder of 10 “very intentional activities” to make the sixth graders feel comfortable with their new school, including theme-based building tours and differentiated whole group and small group time to help build relationships and camaraderie.

Jones said the Bristow WEB program is powered by three mantras:

• “Yes, and …” – a core idea from improv comedy of acceptance, addition and collaboration. Validation of feelings, guiding the conversation forward allowing our sixth graders to feel heard.
• Total Support – leading with empathy, compassion, assuming positive intent and going above and beyond to put others first and yourself second.
• Go BIG! – in every aspect of the program, we push our leaders to go big. Step outside their comfort zones, bring their best energy and push past doubt to make big moves

Jones said the WEB leaders wanted to be sure that the sixth graders, when asked the likely question about how the orientation went, to tell their parents they’re “glad they chose Bristow.”

“I’m so proud of these kids, their willingness to help others,” Jones said. The leaders were great this year, “putting themselves second and others first” to make the transition as smooth as possible for the younger students.

“Connection is important. It’s the backbone of relationships,” said Jones, and that’s key to the WEB program.

The following students are the 2-26-2027 Bristow WEB leaders:

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