This is wonderful news, purpleviolin!
I do often see students with characteristics of ADHD start to pull it together organizationally later in high school, usually around the beginning of junior year, to all appearances very much as a function of maturity. FWIW, there is fMRI data on frontal lobe development in individuals with ADHD which observes that their brains look more like those of children about 2-3 years younger for much of childhood and adolescence, but on the same trajectory, just slightly delayed. So if you think about how that might play out functionally, entering middle school we expect students to take a big step forward in executive functioning (managing multiple classes, keeping their own agendabooks and calendars). If the frontal lobe is functioning more like that of an elementary school student while in middle school, then of course it's hard to stay on top of organizational and planning demands unsupported. Then we hit high school, and the frontal lobe has developed to the level of a middle schooler, but we place high school-level EF demands. Two years later, the frontal lobe has more-or-less reached high school development, and the student is still in high school, so now there is finally a match between development and expectations. And there you are!
So it could be ADHD or it could just be the wide range of normal development. Either way, I agree that time and maturity can help a great deal.
