The Old Rochester Regional High School will start the 2018-19 school year with its biggest freshman and senior classes to date.

"We're welcoming our largest class,"Old Rochester Regional High School Principal Mike Devoll said. "We've got 212 freshman. The next biggest class is the senior class, with 193 seniors. We retained quite a number of kids who would have gone on to private or vocational schools. We want to retain and attract good students. So, we're expecting our enrollment to hover around 780 to 790 students."

He said last year at this time enrollment was 777. "Today it's at 787. It's kinda like the stock market; it goes up and down, " Devoll joked.

Devoll attributes the large influx to the last bubble in population throughout the tritowns.

"I think this is the last larger class coming from the junior high," Devoll said. "I think we'll see enrollments go down after this year."

"We also have 90 students who are with us through 'School Choice', which is the largest number we've had for that" he said. "We open 12 slots (annually) for ninth graders and 12 each for grades 10 through 12."

School Choice is a tuition-based admittance program for students who live outside the school district.

"We've got freshman orientation on Friday. That's huge for the 212 new faces," he said. For the first time we've opened up an evening orientation for parents that work during the day. Usually, we do it just 12 to 2 p.m., and we're still doing that, but we're also doing it in the evening.

"The whole point is to help kids survive their first day of school," Devoll said of the student orientation session. "Nobody wants to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, wearing the wrong thing on their first day. That's lead by our student ambassadors. It's a great group of upperclassmen that run orientation."

Devoll said nothing has changed with regard to bus routes.

"The bus routes are the same as in year's past," he said. "They're posted on our website and on our Facebook page. We sent a blast email out to parents this morning (Monday, Aug. 20).

Devoll talked about what's new at the high school.

"We've expanded our technology department," he said. "We've added some new, exciting tech courses in computer science, robotics and engineering."

"We only have one technology teacher," the principal noted. "For a school our size, that was not meeting the needs of all our kids. The kids just wanted more and more technology classes, so we added another technology teacher, which opened up seats for 120 more kids, which is great."

Devoll talked a bit about new staff and former staff.

"We have our brand new assistant principal. We're excited to bring in Jim Barrasso. "He's one of nine new educators at our school, which is kind of a big number of new faces," Devoll said. "We filled four retiree positions. That was a big thing. We also expanded our special education department by bringing in new paraprofessionals."

Barrasso, a former administrator and teacher at Sturgis Charter School in Hyannis, was hired to replace Michael Parker, who left to become principal at Old Colony Regional Vocational Technical School in Rochester.

Devoll said an average, the school district hires four to five new teaching and paraprofessional staff each year for the high school. He said there were also a few resignations of paraprofessionals. One of those paraprofessional resignations was long-time drama department advisor and director Paul Sardinha.

"We are currently looking to hire an advisor for our drama club," Devoll said. "That advisor would essentially become the director. We're hopeful that we can put on two shows (each year)  like we always do."

Devoll said they have not interviewed outside candidates yet.

"Right now, per our teachers' contract, we are looking within our teacher contract ranks,' the high school principal said. "After that, if we don't have somebody that's capable, we'll look outside teacher ranks."

Devoll commended Sardinha's 26 years as the drama club advisor, and admitted his will be tough shoes to fill.

"Paul (Sardinha) resigned and we wish him luck. We are eager to put on the quality shows that Paul put on. It's going to be tough shoes to fill and I think that's where the anxious feeling kids are feeling right now lays. They don't know what it's going to look like."

Athletics are busy and strong, Devoll said, and he had some excellent news to share about athletics at the high school.

"We have high participation rates in fall athletics. Football has started. The rest of our sports teams begin this Thursday (Aug. 23)," said Devoll, who coaches several of the high school's athletic teams. "We are also celebrating that we were named The Boston Globe 'Dalton Award' winner. The Dalton Award is statewide. We had the highest winning percentage of any high school. We're tops in the state. That's pretty recent news, so we're quite happy about that."

On the  administrative side, Devoll said this year the high school will be undergoing its dicenial accreditation visit from the New England Association of Schools and Colleges.

"We are member of the New England Association of Schools and Colleges. Every ten years they come out for a visit. The school hosts a four- day visit. It's how we get accredited. It's happening from Sept. 30 through Oct. 3," he said. "It's a whole school event. There's a team of 16 people from New England that come and spend three school days and they spend that Sunday, Sept. 30, with us.

"They basically are taking a peak at everything that we do," Devoll said. "They'll sit in on classes. They will meet with students, parents, teachers, school committee members. It's a pretty exhaustive four-day event."

Devoll said the visitors' observations will focus on what school administrators have already prompted them to examine.

"Last year we conducted a year-long self study where we measured ourselves versus seven standards of accreditation. Essentially, this is them coming to take a look at us and everything we reported in our self study," Devoll said. "We want to be an accredited school."