MIDDLE SCHOOL
The middle school years are exciting and the most
important years in your child’s social, emotional, physical, and academic
development. What happens during these three years lays the foundation for
success as your child transitions from the elementary grades to middle school
and from middle school to the high school experience.
Guided each day by our
mission statement visible in each classroom, our dedicated professional
educators support a rigorous and academically comprehensive program in an
environment that balances the academic, artistic, and athletic skills and
talents of each of our students.
Your child not only experiences the academic
offerings of English, History, Science, Mathematics, and Foreign Language, but
also engages in courses that broaden and enrich the intellect; Art, Music and
Performance, Technology Studies, Religious Studies, and Physical Education
which extends to our After School Sports Program. Balance in your child’s life
during these middle school years is important and because of this, our middle
school program provides four study hall periods a week for each student. This is valued time in which your child can work on homework, work with other students on projects, and meet with
teachers for individual help. Further balancing the work week for your child,
the faculty offers non-graded elective courses that meet twice a week. These
courses are developed to share a teacher’s passion with students. Included in the offerings have been Drama/Improvisation, Instrumental Jazz Ensemble, Vocal Jazz Ensemble (The
Songbirds), Student Senate, Recycling, Literary Magazine, Photography/Digital
Imagery, Social Dance, Chess to name a few. Not only do these offerings engage the student in an
interest of their choosing, but these courses also provide an opportunity for a
student to develop a relationship with a teacher in which like passions are
shared.
Complementing all of the course offerings, the
Middle School Advisory Program is designed to address the appropriate developmental
needs of students in each grade level of middle school. Advisors meet with their advisees three
times a week. In these small group settings, issues pertaining to individual
needs, group concerns, school events, further developing study skills, and
self-reflection are addressed. Because these years are crucial in the careful
guidance and mentoring of your child’s social, emotional, physical, and
academic development, the advisory program provides a familiar and comfortable
environment in which your child is able to explore, to question, to examine,
and to engage in the process of establishing a strong foundation as a learner
who is knowledgeable, most importantly, about self. “How do I describe myself
as a scholar?” is the question our students learn to answer during their sixth
grade year and, at the end of their eighth grade year, can answer the question,
“As a scholar, what is my commitment to my academic development and how do I
engage effectively with my peers and mentors in achieving this commitment?”
As the three years of the Middle School program
come to a close for your child, we are confident that the transitions from the
elementary grades and now into the high school years have been attended to with
great care and dedication by our faculty, students, and you, the parents. No
one group is responsible for the “whole” experience. This we recognize and
embrace. As graduates of the Middle School, students possess a solid academic foundation enabling them to communicate effectively, to think critically, and to solve problems
independently. Your child also possesses confidence as a scholar and an inner
drive to become a life-long learner and a responsible citizen. The four directions of our character
development program, Compass, have guided all of our students during their journey with us of aspiring to and attaining Excellence, Responsibility, Service, and Spirituality in what we do and in what we say all the while guided by truth, Veritas.