It was nearly two years ago when I wrote my first column on Moscow Middle School, which dealt with the move of sixth grade from the elementary schools to the middle school.
Now, I find it fitting to release one final follow-up detailing how major parts of the school system work.
The school year of 2013-14 went as well as can be expected, with no major hiccups. The transition time has passed, last year's sixth-graders being placed into seventh grade and given free choices for electives. This year, sixth-graders have more expanded options for school time, though they are still not allowed into sports for the simple reason that a team of sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders are going to be unevenly matched against the teams of seventh-, eighth- and ninth-graders in the area. This is not likely to change until most or all area teams become middle school rather than junior high school.
The seventh-graders sent in applications for the classes they wanted to take, and the classes were given according to wishes when possible. Certain classes, such as Spanish or geometry (which is only available for eighth grade), count for credits on the high school level. Other classes, such as technology literacy, must be passed in order to take a higher level class (e.g., computer applications). This system still holds.
The class schedule remains the same as well. Each day has a different order of classes, as well as different class lengths.
No new activities, sports or clubs have been introduced except for one - the Life Is Good Club. They make a music video and generally appreciate life.
Popular events such as track and field, cross-country, football and Knowledge Bowl remain. In addition, Knowledge Master Open has been discontinued nationwide, and is replaced by Knowledge Master Scholars (I see no difference between the two except that KMO does not track progress).
A big change is the ISATs (Idaho Standards Achievement Tests) are being replaced with the SBACs (Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium), which are more involved - and glitchy.
This year is the testing year. Only one ISAT was taken by the seventh grade, that one being science. The other four were all English and math tests.
I rather like this new form of testing. I hope it is incorporated into the standard curriculum to replace the long, slow, boring ISATs. I do realize it sounds like an advertisement (Hint: any academic product with "smarter" in its name is probably an advertisement), but I liked how they were put together and operated.
It may be my imagination, but the school seems to have become more streamlined with minimal additional stress on students. It seems as if we're getting a lot more learning done in less time - in about a month, my knowledge of cytology (study of cells) increased dramatically (I can now name all the organelles by memory), and I actually learned the word "cytology." Isn't that amazing?
All in all, disquiet from the move seems to have subsided - it is rare anyone mentions it except to complain that "we are always the guinea pigs." That much is sometimes true, though not always.
The school process has been streamlined greatly, and I appreciate that. Now the learning process has been streamlined, and we're learning a lot more. I like this change to Moscow Middle School - I like it a lot. If this great change started with the sixth grade move, then I'm glad we moved.
Björn Pellmyr attends Moscow Middle School, where he hopes to expand his understanding of botany.
