Tennis coach Debbie Woodall, right, chats with eighth-grade players Chloe Clement, left, and Megan McReynolds on Monday before the start of match play at Southwest Junior High. Next year when sixth-graders will join the district’s middle schools, they will have the opportunity to participate in athletics, clubs and other after-school activities.

This year’s fifth-graders will get more opportunities next year to participate in athletics, academic clubs and other organized after-school activities.

Seventh-grader Alison Gehrke returns the ball Monday during a tennis tournament at Southwest Junior High.

Thanks, middle schools.

Such increased offerings are among the benefits envisioned by district leaders and administrators, as they prepare to create what Superintendent Rick Doll describes as “true middle schools” in Lawrence: buildings for sixth, seventh and eighth grades, rather than the current seventh, eight and ninth grades.

“I would like sixth-graders to feel like they have a range of opportunities to be involved in,” said Trish Bransky, in her 16th year as principal at Southwest Junior High School, 2511 Inverness Drive. “Having kids be engaged in school, you’ve got them hooked and they want to be there — that’s three-quarters of the battle. They’ll show up. They’ll work for you. They’ll have a sense of community. …

“It really works.”

The upcoming shift of grade levels will arrive after five consecutive years of Lawrence sixth-graders indicating on surveys that they have far fewer opportunities for such activities than their counterparts statewide.

While elementary schools offer band and orchestra, and possibly a morning track program or an after-school chess club, current junior highs feature more. At Southwest, for example, all grades may take part in Drama Club, Stock Market Simulation and International Club. There’s also a Science Club, Geography Bee, a Model United Nations and a White House Decision Center.

District committees are busy grappling with transition issues for all schools, including the movement of sixth-graders into what next year will be middle schools. Decisions still need to be made about which school sports, for example, sixth-graders will be able to participate in. Same for band, orchestra and other activities.

But the promise of more and varied offerings is there, Bransky said, and that’s something that should help Southwest’s youngest students feel right at home.

“It builds a community,” she said.