When Reagan Fields starts at Bowling Green High School next week, she and her fellow freshmen will have opportunities no other student has had before.

Reagan spent her morning Wednesday learning about the school’s new Joseph Tinius LEAD Academy, which opens for all freshmen on the first day of school Wednesday. The LEAD Academy sets out to support the school’s freshmen and promote the values of leadership, excellence, achievement and diversity.

“It’s better to have the freshmen all in one place so we get to know the school better,” Reagan said of the academy, which works like a school within a school on BGHS’ second floor.

As a freshman in the academy’s first class, Reagan looks forward to the community service opportunities and leadership skills the academy will offer. The students will participate in one of seven community service projects within five miles of the school.

“To get everyone involved I think will be really good for our community and our school,” she said.

Along with community service projects, all freshmen will receive a Chromebook they can use to work together on class projects and create a digital portfolio to track their academic progress. Other efforts to boost student success include monthly luncheons with guest speakers for rotating groups of freshmen along with a mentorship program for at least 60 students.

The academy is named for Joseph Tinius, the district’s former superintendent.

“It’s very humbling that they would want to attach my name to it,” Tinius told the Daily News at a ribbon-cutting ceremony Wednesday.

The academy was dreamed up by school officials and district administrators, but Tinius says it’s more for students than adults.

“At the end of the day, schools exist for students,” he said. “As adults, it’s our responsibility to give them every opportunity to make it theirs.”

For BGISD Superintendent Gary Fields, the academy will set the foundation for lingering success throughout high school and beyond.

BGHS Principal William King said the idea to start the academy was a response to a review of freshmen in the 2009-10 school year.

“We were looking at our school data and we saw the freshman year was the year where we had the most issues, the most discipline referrals, most number of days missed by students for various reasons and biggest issue with grades and kids being held back,” he said.

In response, the officials did research and visited other schools around the state to find solutions. They opted to assign an assistant principal to look after freshmen exclusively and ease the transition from middle to high school. Freshmen teachers are also working more closely.

“We’ve reduced the number of days the kids are missing,” King said. “We’ve really reduced our discipline referrals almost cutting those in half, and we’ve reduced the number of kids being retained (as freshmen).”

School officials recently came up with the LEAD Academy to continue those improvement efforts. It includes a freshman counselor along with the freshman principal and moves most freshman teachers upstairs in their own area with student lockers.

The goal over the next four years is to cycle the Chromebooks through each group of incoming freshmen, allowing them to work with Google Docs and other Google classroom tools. Each month, 30 students can be nominated for the leadership luncheon featuring guest speakers who’ve built successful careers for themselves.

“Our goal is that those kids would be able to swap contact information with those people and kind of build a network,” King said.

Some freshmen will be selected for mentorships that Tinius is helping to organize. King said school officials have reached out to Western Kentucky University fraternities for help with that.

“I think they’ll feel more supported,” King said of the academy’s students.

— Follow education reporter Aaron Mudd on Twitter @BGDN_edbeat or visit bgdailynews.com.