Elimination of middle schools in NYC
 

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/03/education/03SCHO.html

For those who aren't registered, what they're planning to do is to get rid of middle schools and have old style elementary schools (K-8) or elementary schools and then middle and high school combos.

What do you think? Did you attend a middle school/junior high/intermediate school? Do you think the NYC school system should revert back to the old K-8? Here in Toronto, many of the older elementary schools (downtown-ish) are JK(JK is junior kindergarten which is for 4 year olds. We have 2 years of kindergarten here)-8, but once you get to further north, you may find JK-6 (or JK-5), 7/8 (some may be 6-8, and others 7-9) and then 9-12 (or 10-12). I went to private school and it went from JK-high school graduation. We were all housed in the same building, with the junior school (JK-6) in a separate wing. What do you think about schools that are 7-12 or 6-12? Some feel that older kids might be bad influence to 11 and 12 year olds, though the 7-12 or 6-12 system seems to work fine in private schools.

I attended a 7-12 public school, and I really can't imagine it any other way.

I think it made the high school "experience" on the whole easier... it just wasn't a big deal. The upper-level (grade 11/12) students kind of took care of the 7th and 8th graders to make it easier for them to transition to high school and protect them from the 9th graders who thought it was cool to beat up the "little kids".

When I was a sophomore we built a middle school that housed 6-8... both the high school and the middle school had more problems than the HS did with 7th and 8th graders.

I went to a parochial school that was k-8 and then obviously highschool for 9-12. it worked out fine for me :)

I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing - but it might be more of a "culture" shock for those incoming h.s. freshman to be leaving a land of kindergardners and 1st graders - ya know?

Any system has its advantages and disadvantages.

My personal preference would be to break it up K-6 and 7-12. I feel that 7th and 8th graders would benefit more from being in a high-schoolish environment rather than the same elementary-school environment they've been in since they were five. Plus, this means that gifted 7th and 8th graders can take advantage of the resources available in a high school - advanced courses, libraries with books chosen for older students, access to teachers who also teach honors or AP level classes to older students, etc. - without having to be bused around the district.

I don't think the 11- and 12-year-olds would cross paths with the 17-18 year old "bad influences" very often. They'd be together at lunch/recess and on the bus (and honestly, what 18yo rides the bus if he has access to a car? ;) ) but they wouldn't be mixing in most of their classes (maybe gym, art, or music, but not math, science, English, etc.)

Disclaimer: I am not a parent. I'm speaking from the experience I had growing up. I attended a small Catholic school that went K-8, but transferred to the public middle school when I entered sixth grade... one of the best decisions I've made.

ETA: The public schools where I grew up are broken up K-5, 6-8, and 9-12. It was pretty common for kids in the Catholic school to transfer to middle school when entering sixth grade.

The public schools where I live now are broken up K-3, 4-5, 6-8, and 9-12. That just seems like an awful lot of school-changing.

When they built a new Jr. High in my district, they changed the Jr High years from 6-9 instead of 7-9. It didn't work well at all. The 6th graders were not ready to be with 9th graders and the elementary teachers that had come over didn't care for the jr high environment either. Now the schools are elementary - K-6 (there is a K-3 and 4-6 school in the most populated area, the other 2 small elementaries are K-6), jr high - 7-9 and sr high - 10-12. The junior high and senior high are connected by a portal but they are treated as 2 separate buildings & the kids aren't allowed to go from one to the other w/ out a pass.

It's one thing if the school is very very small, but if not I don't like the idea of K-8 at all.

That's a very good point. It was a big culture shock for me to go from a little Catholic school where everyone knew everyone, to a big middle school where I knew maybe a couple of other kids. I got that out of my system in sixth grade; some of my classmates who stayed in the Catholic school had to face it when they entered high school or, worse, college. That's why I'd like to break it up K-6 and 7-12.

Here, many of the Jr. high schools (6-9) are being eliminated. Most districts are following the Middle School Concept.

Elem: K-5; Middle 6-8; High 9-12

It's usually in the rural areas where (7-12) are housed on the same campus.

I attended a 7-12 school and it was a very positive experience. Granted, it was a college prep magnet school, so a lot of problems that regular high schools face weren't a factor (if you couldn't make it academically or behaviorally, you were dropped and sent to your neighborhood school) Some of the nice things about my school were:

- Many older students acted as mentors for the younger students.
- There was a wider range of classes to take to suit each student’s academic levels. Many kids at my school were in the 7-9 grade range and taking AP Calculus A/B or B/C. They wouldn't get that opportunity at a regular jr. high/middle school.
- Students from the same family could go to the same school. The regular h.s. in the area started around 7:20, but middle school didn't start until almost 9 am. It can be a logistical mess to have kids catching 2 different busses, or driving them to school at 2 different times. (I know, I went to the magnet, and my sister went to the neighborhood school) Sending them to the same school can simplify that.
-More opportunities for foreign language instruction. It was possible to take 6 years of a foreign language at my school (thanks to the IB requirement of at least 5 years) where at the neighborhood schools my sister went to, the most you could take was 4 years.

I went from JK-8 at my elementary school and then 9-OAC (but there is no OAC anymore) at highschool. I like it that way.
I don't know if it really makes a difference if you split up the grades at different schools.

Honestly, I think this is a step in the wrong direction. There is a lot of research out there that states that students in grades 6-8 learn completely differently from both their elementary and high school counterparts. It's a crucial, in-between time.

I think the problem may be that the middle school concept wasn't carried out correctly, which is all too often the case. If done incorrectly, there are no tangible benefits.

Although I have learned a lot about middle schools through my mom who studied them extensively for her doctoral work, I am no middle school expert. I just hope that whatever the NYC schools do decide to go with works well for their children and their education.

I went to a K-8 school. Hated it. I especially hated not being able to switch classes. We had the same teacher and same classmates throughout the day. When I arrived at high school, I was in for a big culture shock. But it was cool to have recess twice a day in 6-8 grade, unlike the other middle schools.

My elementary school was from JK-8. But in grades 7 and 8 we switched classes. I did have the same classmates for every class, but we had different teachers for Gym (PE), math, science, family studies (home ec) and design and technology(shop).

I didn't mind having the same classmates because I had a pretty cool class. Also, my elemntary school only had about 650 students at the time.

Yeah, but at a 7-12 school, the middle school aged kids can get high school credits earlier. I know that at private schools in Ontario, it is possible for kids to have up to 3 credits going in to grade 9 (usually it's art, phys.ed and computers). Makes the new four year program less stressful for them if they get rid of some of the electives.

Edit: I attended a middle school for grade 6 and we'd have the same teacher for math, English and social studies, but a different teacher for other subjects (science, art, phys.ed, music, french, family studies/design and technology). You get different teachers for different subjects in grade 8 though.

Oh same with us, I meant that we didn't have different teachers for the core stuff (english, math, history).

Oh yes, that was the other annoying thing about the Catholic school I attended. In K-3, you had the same teacher and classmates throughout the day, for math, science, social studies, English, religion, etc. We had different teachers for gym, art, music, and computers, each of which met once a week, but we went to those classes all together.

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This also meant that the teacher had to teach to the level of the slowest student in the grade level (there was one class per grade level). I think we spent all of our first-grade math instruction time on addition. Not subtraction - addition. :rolleyes: I was sooo bored - but would my parents let me enroll in the public elementary school, where there were programs and resources for gifted children? Nooooo! It was more important to them that I knew the Stations of the Cross than that I knew how to subtract.

Did I mention I really hated Catholic school? :p

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