By VINAYA SAKSENA

CENTRAL FALLS — All seemed well at Central Falls High School Wednesday as the school experienced its first day of a new school year — with a new organizational structure to boot.

The new setup divides the student body into a “lower house” of ninth- and 10th-graders, and an “upper house” of 11th- and 12th-graders. Under this system, lower-house students will have the same group of teachers in ninth and 10th grades.
In the upper house, juniors and seniors will choose an area of study for their final two years of high school. Schools Superintendent Frances Gallo said the choices would include visual and performing arts and global studies.
For this year, the new structure applies to freshmen and sophomores. The upper house approach will be implemented for 2009-10.
Gallo said the two-house approach is intended to shore up attendance and make the transition to high school less of a shock to incoming students, thus, it is hoped, reducing the dropout rate at CFHS.
Gallo acknowledged that such a reduction might not happen overnight. “It’s going to take a lot of hard work on everybody’s part,” she said.
According to Gallo, the bifurcated system is part of corrective action  Department of Education officials demanded after the state took over the city’s schools. When an oversight committee drafted a plan to overhaul city school, near the top of their list was a dropout rate that sees nearly half the school’s ninth graders disappear, never to return.
Gallo said this had been a problem at least since she took her current position in April 2007. The reasons are unclear, Gallo said, but a sharp change in school atmosphere between eighth grade and the beginning of high school probably did not help.
“I think students are used to a family atmosphere, (where) everybody knows everybody,” Gallo said, referring to Calcutt Middle School. “Our sense is, ‘let’s see if we can (create) that atmosphere’” at Central Falls High School.
How did day one go? “I didn’t get any complaints,” Gallo said. “We had a steady showing of ninth-graders coming to school, which is a good thing.”