Hi, Parents/Guardians - I'm so excited to be reaching out to share a preview of some scheduling changes we're going to be making in the Middle School starting next year. These Mission-aligned, researc
I'm so excited to be reaching out to share a preview of some scheduling changes we're going to be making in the Middle School starting next year. These Mission-aligned, research-backed changes to the Middle School schedule are going to allow us to further live our progressive education values by affording students greater choice and voice in their own learning. This email contains just a few overarching bullet points to orient you to these forthcoming changes.
1) In 6th - 8th grade, we will no longer have travel groups. Each student will have a customized, personalized schedule. The possibilities of this shift become especially exciting when we look at the next two changes to the schedule.
2) World language classes will be ability-based, rather than age-based, which means classes will become cross-grade level learning communities. For example, an 8th grader who is new to Spanish/Chinese can start their learning journey in Spanish or Chinese I, rather than being shoehorned into a more advanced "8th grade" course. Similarly, a 6th grader coming to us from a bilingual elementary school can immediately join our more advanced Spanish/Chinese III course.
3) Art and music will now be offering electives to our 6th - 8th graders. Art and music will each offer two electives per semester. Students will still have four periods of fine arts each week. Students may choose to take one art course and one music course per semester (similar to the current schedule); the other option is to choose two different music courses per semester or two different art courses per semester. The one catch is that over the course of a school year, all students will be required to take at least one music or art class. In other words, no student could go a full year without taking both art and music -- it's important that student choice doesn't morph into specialization.
Students will be informed of these changes in the next couple of weeks when we will begin registration for next year's art and music electives.
If you have questions or just want to talk through some of these changes, Shelly, Alexandra, and I will be hosting a Google Meet. Please join us on Monday, May 9th at 7:00pm via this Meet link. This link can also be found on the Parent Calendar.
Best,
Zak
--
Zachary Cohen
Middle School Director
(he/him/his)
ZCohen@StFrancisSchool.org
502.795.3489
www.StFrancisSchool.org
Current Reading: Start-Up Nation by Dan Senor and Saul Singer
Current Listening: A Jewish State by Theodor Herzl