Mitigating the perils of transition to early adolescence, while also supporting the promise of this stage of human development, has been a major focus of middle school reform (Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development, 1989; Jackson & Davis, 2000). As a result, there are many classroom-based educational programs that target the social and emotional development of middle school students. By comparison, the transition into middle adolescence, marked by entry into high school for most students, is a more recent focus of educational reform and relatively fewer educational programs target this developmental choke point (Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning, 2005a). This article has two main objectives. First, it identifies paradigms and research-based strategies designed to ease student transition into high school and help them reach developmental milestones in middle adolescence development. Second, it highlights promising implementation models illustrated by real-world examples from high schools that are building an effective focus on freshmen transition.