Edit: The Seminole County School Board has not yet made a final decision on whether they will make Millennium a 9th grade center for Seminole High School at the time this article was published. The Board will be voting on this in the near future.

Located near Seminole High School, Millennium Middle School is known for its performing arts magnet program that offers a multitude of courses for students. The school, open for a number of years, is likely to be closed temporarily and reopened as the new campus for Seminole High’s 1,000 or more ninth grade students. 

The decision to make Millennium a separate school environment was strongly based on overpopulation occurring at Seminole. Students are normally turned away as a result of this, and Seminole must be exceedingly selective when choosing applicants to attend the school. The solution of transferring freshmen to a different campus was made to counter the effects of having too many students in one location.

Sophomore Jason Raman says, “This new campus could be really helpful for [the overflow]. There’s always a lot of people in the halls, and converting Millennium to the freshman campus will help that out a lot.”

Principal Dr. Connie Collins says, “I’m excited. I’ve done it in the past, and there are pros and cons, but there’s always a new experience at a new place… The only thing different [about Seminole] is that our 9th grade center will be located within walking distance. There have been instances where 9th grade centers are several miles away,” explains Collins.

Since Millennium is so much closer to Seminole than other schools, the activities hosted on the freshman and  main campus will be able to interact much more than if they were farther away.

The decision to make Millennium the new freshman campus may have certain drawbacks that come with moving sections of the student body somewhere else. This action could possibly isolate the freshman class, limiting their contact with the other classes, and discourage the possible friendships that could flourish between freshmen and students of other grades.

It also can affect their ability to effectively participate in the numerous extracurriculars that Seminole has to offer. Freshmen may not join as many clubs as they are not able to be as active on the campus with older members of the school.

Freshman Srinija Cherivirala believes that freshman learn a lot from the older classes, saying, “[Freshman] will be less mature because they won’t have upperclassmen role models, and they won’t have as much connection as if they were with the general populous of Seminole.”

Although the construction project is still not finalized, the district could replace Millennium with a new middle school near Midway Elementary and rebuild the vocational classrooms at the existing Seminole High.