Seventh-graders head for their homerooms yesterday at Aldrich Junior High School, now a middle school as are the city’s other two junior highs. At Gorton Junior High, the middle-school model was employed previously, for two years, as a pilot program.

The Providence Journal / Kathy Borchers

WARWICK — To a child, the difference is subtle. To an educator it’s extraordinary.

“A decade plus” after school systems throughout Rhode Island — and indeed around the country — moved from clunky junior high schools to more personalized middle schools, Warwick is at last making the transition this week, one of the last districts in the state to do so.

Ask a handful of educators what differentiates a middle school and you’ll get almost as many answers. But a common theme emerges: middle schools focus on adolescents as people, not just as students.

Children of that age are an emotional and sometimes cranky bunch whose psychological needs can overshadow academic ones. Confronted with that reality in the 1990s, schools responded by creating more-intimate academic environments that focused on the child as a whole — a goal that was mainly accomplished through team teaching.

The approach works this way: students are divided into teams of about 100, who rotate among the same four teachers for each of their core subject groups — English, math, science and social studies — so teachers can get to know their students, then share ideas about what works and what doesn’t.

“The research is very clear on what succeeds with young adolescents and this is it,” said Robert C. Spear, executive director of the New England League of Middle Schools.

But as other districts reaped the benefits of the not-so-new approach, the state’s second-largest school district was largely left behind, mired in labor problems. That changed yesterday when Warwick welcomed its 7th-graders to its three newly minted middle schools.

When the first period ended at 9:43, Aldrich Junior High School students rocketed out of four adjoining classrooms. Giggling and joking, as middle schoolers do, they made their way down the hall to specialist elective classes.

In their wake, four teachers wasted no time. They clustered around a table in Diane Henderson’s social studies room and got to work on their first common planning time of the year.

It was a chance to debrief one another on curriculum and discuss their new family of students. Once the year gears up, they’ll tackle academic and social problems to help children of all abilities get the most out of school.

Aldrich principal William Sangster calls it circle vision. The teachers envelope the students in a circle, so none of their troubles can escape unnoticed.

“We’re thrilled,” science teacher Diane Maruszczak said of the new setup. “We now have time during the day to do everything we’ve been trying to do.”

For scheduling purposes, all three schools had followed a loose version of these teams for several years. But with no allotted time to sit down and plan, the hallmark of the middle school mission was missing.

“Common planning time is critical,” said Victor Mercurio, Warwick’s director of secondary education. “It helps the teachers really wrap around the kids.”

The names on the buildings may never change, officials say, but inside the confines of Aldrich, teachers have already created mini team-centered schools within the school.

In Warwick, the new model also calls for an added academic period, to allow extra time for students to explore “specialist classes,” including computer science, art, or when necessary, academic enrichment.

For incoming seventh graders, the new approach will mean a less stressful move to secondary school. For eighth graders, it’s an upgraded version of last year and, hopefully, more thorough high school preparation.

The biggest change will come for teachers, Mercurio anticipates. True team teaching will give them a built-in support system, but it will also require them to work together more than they’re used to.

Preparation for the switch has been limited. Teachers received some professional development, but for the most part training will happen in classrooms.

Warwick Teachers Union president Samuel Holtzman said members know the move will benefit students, though he expects it will take time to work out the bugs.

“Relief ” is how former Aldrich principal Don Brown characterizes his reaction to the first day of middle school yesterday. As principal in the 1990s, Brown was one of the first in this district to push for the middle school model.

But the right approach surfaced at exactly the wrong time in Warwick and the transition was put off. In 2002, Gorton Junior High School piloted a middle school program, but permanent adoption was scraped due to contract problems.

The state Education Department says it has no official policy on whether districts should switch to middle schools, though it supports an interdisciplinary approach, says spokesman Elliot Krieger.

But Mercurio says Warwick’s tardiness is hard to ignore. “In terms of having all our schools doing this, we are a decade-plus behind,” he said.

And the move comes at a time when some in national education circles question whether middle schools are in fact the most effective way to teach adolescents.

Spear, of the New England League of Middle Schools, believes problems surface when schools are too focused on students instead of academics. Faculty, he said, must be careful not to take too much of a holistic approach. “If teachers use the planning time, but they only talk about the kids and their issues, you’re not going to get the kind of academic gains you need,” he said.

It will take months, if not several years, before Warwick can judge the success of its new middle schools.

In the meantime, Sangster acknowledges the transition will challenge all three schools involved. “We’re changing the wheels of the bus while we’re riding down the road,” he said. “But let’s face it, I’d rather see these changes happen while we’re in motion than not happen at all.”

cneedham@projo.com