Program Overview

Each student must take five core courses each trimester: communication arts (reading, writing, listening, speaking, and spelling), mathematics, science, social studies, and health enhancement (physical education and health topics).

Elective Classes

As a part of the academic program, students select elective classes to fill out their program. Over fifty elective classes provide an education in and exposure to the visual and performing arts, the work place, and the trades.  If a student needs extra help in reading, he or she may be placed in Reading Strategies during one of their elective periods.

Advisory/Study Strategies

All students are scheduled in an Advisory class Monday and Friday, and an Access class Tuesday through Thursday; these classes comprise the first thirty minutes of the school day.  The purpose of Advisory is to ensure each student is understood and championed by at least one adult (the advisor) who will facilitate interactions between other students, teachers, or administrators.  The Advisory teacher will help each student find ways to be successful academically and socially, and promote coordination and communication between home and school.  The purpose of the Access class is to provide further vocabulary instruction, academic support and enrichment opportunities.

Middle School Libraries

Services provided by the library staff are an essential element of the academic program at the middle schools.  Students have group and one-on-one instruction in which they are guided in exploring and practicing use of the resources in the library and online.  By the time students leave the middle schools they have developed the skills and strategies they will need for the research and study required in high school and beyond.

Located in the center of the middle schools, the library houses a collection of over 12,000 titles.  The collection of books, both extensive and varied, allows students to extend the work done in the classroom.  The online catalog leads students to books in the middle school collections and is accessible through computers in the library.

Students and staff use the library regularly, whether looking up information for a research paper, preparing for class, discussing a difficult research problem with one of the library staff members, listening to an outside speaker, checking out books or merely enjoying a popular magazine.

Technology 

The middle schools are dedicated to implementing technological tools and innovations in the classroom and the operations of the school.  The schools have successfully implemented a school-wide Ethernet network.  All teachers are connected to both the school-wide Ethernet network and the internet, allowing staff to enter student attendance data, calculate and input grades directly to student report cards, access student schedules and other information, and send and receive e-mail messages, including morning announcements, from the classrooms.  Both schools maintain web sites accessible from home, and many teachers post classroom activities and upcoming events on a regular basis.

While many of our middle school students have their own computers, each school also has two portable computer labs and many workstations in the library.  Macintosh computers reside in both labs and classrooms, along with multiple laser printers, ink jet printers, optical scanners, digital cameras, and a CD recorder.  There is a laserdisc player and a video microscope in science classrooms.  Every student has access to a TI-83+ graphing calculator for use in math classes.