Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Open thread for your thoughts

REMINDER:  THERE ARE TWO MEETINGS at the Jane Addams Building coming up, in which Planning Principal Paula Montgomery will speak with prospective parents about JAMS.  Please plan to attend one or both of these meetings!


WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 11
and
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 18 
Both meetings run from 6:30 to 8 in the Jane Addams Middle School library, and both will follow the same agenda.  More info about the agenda can be found here: Post: JAMS Meetings Coming Up -- Please Come!

The Jane Addams building is located at 11051 34th Ave NE, Seattle WA 98125.  The library is located on the second floor.

___________________________________
Share your thoughts about JAMS programming and facilities in the comments to this post.  Starting next week, we will have regular posts about specific areas of programming, incorporating the comments we have so far received from you on this blog and by email.

Please keep the following statement of our blog's focus in mind (this is posted on the right nav bar and on our Guidelines page):

This is a narrowly defined blog. It is about planning JAMS and facilitating community engagement. It is offered by parent volunteers. This is not a place to discuss school district policies, personalities, or politics. It is a place for constructive civil discourse. We reserve the right to delete off-topic or abusive comments without warning or comment.

In addition, we ask that if you post using the "anonymous" option that you choose some sort of handle or posting name, some kind of word that will help the others in the conversation refer to your comment. 

Please review our posting guidelines before commenting. Thank you!

6 comments:

  1. In addition to the blocking of Language Arts and Social studies I propose that JAMS adds 6th to 7th grade looping as is done at Washington Middle School. What students need is to develop a strong mentor mentee relationship with at least one of their teachers. This in depth and student centered policy pays off big time for student learning and closing the academic achievement gap. Why should a student have to waste time on relearning policies and personalities when that time could be spent more appropriately on learning the skills and content required for their future. While there will inevitably be a few changes or challenges for individual students or staff this is truly one of the few proven academic strategies for increasing student learning. Why send a child to a tutor when they have the time with a teacher who knows your child through and through and can deliver what the child needs rather than a repeated series of 'one size fits none' approaches? The only argument I have seen against that don't revolve around poor conflict resolution skills are that it is difficult to plan the first year. Yes, it is. But we must do these things in this instance not because it is easy but because it is hard (with apologies to JFK). As a teacher in the district I can say that if JAMS were to adopt these teacher friendly and pedagogically sound policies it would be a magnet for innovative i.e. 'distinguished' level teachers.

    -Considering

    ReplyDelete
  2. @Considering
    I like the idea of having a looping teacher/mentor. Kids in middle school go through a lot of changes, and it would be good to be able to have one familiar teacher stay in contact with the student from grades 6-8.

    I know that Eckstein, with it's large enrollment can afford to have three counselors, one per grade, and the counselor stays with same class from grades 6 through 8. Unfortunately, not every middle school can afford 3 counselors (I believe the current funding formula is one counselor per every 400 students. The teacher looping may help alleviate, to some extent, not being able to have one counselor for each grade level?

    - KM

    ReplyDelete
  3. To play devil's advocate - Looping creates scheduling challenges, but it's also problematic if the teacher is not a good fit for your child. When the discussion happened at HIMS, families with a teacher their student liked were more open to looping, but the others, not so much.

    -CS

    ReplyDelete
  4. I can see how that could be problematic.

    -KM

    ReplyDelete
  5. I am not a fan of looping. In my family's experience it led to rigid relations among the kids and kids ended up being cliquey with limited opportunities to make new friends. Academically, if the teacher is great it's wonderful. If the teacher isn't so good or can't control the class (as happened in our case), it is two years wasted and not just one. It's is not easy to recover from two years of poor instruction.
    RR

    ReplyDelete
  6. According to the Washington MS website the "looping" concept there encompasses both of the following: counselors "looping" with students for 6-7-8, and also "looping of all Grade 6 & 7 Language Arts and Social Studies classes". Seems like two very different uses of the word.

    RR, what was the looping that your family experienced like? Was it that your child had a not-so-good teacher for LA/SS for two years, or was it like an advisory homeroom class that remained static? Interested in teasing out this topic.

    ReplyDelete

You're welcome to comment anonymously, but you must sign your comment with a posting name of some kind (e.g., initials or alias). Please review our posting guidelines before commenting. Thanks!

About Us

Seattle, WA, United States
We are a group of parents who are excited to get involved in planning the best possible middle school for our kids!