District Initiatives
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Excellent Middle Schools
Pillars of Excellence
The Excellent Middle Schools plan is built upon seven guiding principles for meeting the academic, social, emotional and physical needs of middle grades students. These guiding principles are referred to as the Seven Pillars of Excellence:
- Schedule
- Curriculum and Instruction
- Personalization
- Parent Involvement
- College/Career Education
- Meeting All Student Needs
- Student Activities
Rigor and Relevance
The Excellent Middle Schools program seeks to increase the rigor and relevance of our middle school program by allowing more time for instruction, individualized support and enrichment for students, and teacher collaboration. Middle schools have also established advisory periods to provide personalized support for students in an individual and/or group setting. Additionally, our middle schools have expanded the range of electives and student activities available to enhance students’ academic experience, while increasing their exposure to college and career options.
Grade Configuration
Design Teams
The Excellent Middle Schools program is implemented through a collaborative process that involves various stakeholders in planning, evaluating and reporting on the progress of the program at each campus. The following teams participate in the Excellent Middle Schools program implementation:
- Excellent Middle School Administrators: Principals and assistant principals who meet regularly to resolve implementation issues, identify and measure progress against specific indicators of success, ensure consistency of implementation across sites, and identify emerging priorities and issues.
- School Site Design Teams: These site level teams are responsible for the design, structure, and implementation of the Excellent Middle School components at the site level, guided by the agreements made by the District Design Teams and middle school administrators.
- District Design Teams: Members of each School Site Design Team were selected to participate on one of four 2009-2010 District Design teams which are: College and Career, Professional Development, Parent Involvement, and Transitions. The District Design Teams have developed specific goals and benchmarks to be addressed for each area.
Funding
Funding to support additional staff and professional development for the Excellent Middle Schools plan was provided by the Webster Foundation, whose generous contribution of $1.2 million has been critical in launching this initiative.
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