James Hart: we are 6 through
8th grade middle school and we are educating
in that amazing time that is middle school
as we are preparing them
for high school and beyond
I challenge them
in terms of believing in themselves
in terms of setting high standards
in terms of providing them with tools
and avenues to work with other students so that they
will be prepared for the next grade level and
ultimately the world
Some kids just might learn in a smaller environment
so we have a small group math class
so that one-on-one attention to get them to
feel more confident and comfortable with it
"Your take this and you dip it inside here"
it's a lot of hands-on making that
learning experience fun and exciting
With hands-on science they want to do it they want
to get in there they want to see how it works
They're busy all the time .
we offer foreign language
we have both Spanish and French
a lot of students
don't want to, you know, do this in front of the whole class so
I always feel like a combination of whole class
instruction and cooperative learning always
bring really what's out from the students
"okay what impact did the Holocaust have on families?"
we have large class discussion small group and then
just pairs discussions so we try
to find some system
that makes every student feel comfortable
Every six weeks didn't get to take a new special here at our school
so we have art class we have shop
we have a general music we have health
we have Creative Media Arts and then STEM
We constantly have
conversations with our kids about how what we're learning
in here applies to society or
real life careers
every student receives
general music education we have tried
to create a curriculum
that is accessible by all students
we have band
choir and orchestra but we embed it
right into our school day
we have school activities like jazz band and those
all this whole range let's our kids
that are here for the 6th 7th and 8th grade years
to try a variety of musical things to
find which one is theirs
we have
PE every single day we have so many
different offerings and something new is our
fitness room this is the
one area that everybody
can be great at it
It doesn't matter what body type you are
how old you are it is doable
and to be sucessful at it
"Today is the acutal quiz?"
We also have what's called Success 101
so we have a couple of our
teachers they work with the kids one-on-one to
get them organized to make
sure that they're ready for each one of their classes
We meet with them at the end of the day so they're kind of gone through
the school day so that way we can kind of touch base
of them at the end of the day and say how did the day go
What do we need to do for the next day
We're preparing them to be lifelong learners inside
and outside of the classroom
we offer a lot of sports but not every student is a sports kid
so we also offer plenty of other activities after school
The kids don't just leave here
as the school day ends
The bell rings at 2:40
half the kids are still here
We care about the whole child here we put our heart
and soul into every day of teaching we're always
reflecting on what we're doing
we're always trying to make our environment better for our students
We all are here for the common goal
and that is to help kids to learn
to succeed and become better students
better thinkers we really do
everything we can to make sure that your child is successful
we sit around all the time and we're
saying okay what can we do next in order to make
sure that every student succeeds at our school