A Sample of Accelerated Middle School Programs and Accelerated Middle Schools Across the Nation

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1 A Sample of Accelerated Middle School Programs and Accelerated Middle Schools Across the Nation As part of the process undertaken by the RTSD staff in developing RMS accelerated classes and criteria for selection for those classes, dozens of accelerated programs in other middle schools were reviewed, both for content and placement processes. Because many of the program descriptions that were reviewed spanned several web pages, the excessive time it would take to reproduce them prevents our including all of them. What follows is a sample of some of the middle school accelerated programs we reviewed. Some are program listings, some are descriptions, and some include placement criteria. A high percentage of the middle school programs that have accelerated classes offer them only to identified gifted students. Unwilling to limit our selection process to GIEP students, we focused our attention on the placement protocols of those schools who admit any student demonstrating mastery. Some public school district accelerated middle school programs are housed in separate buildings or magnet schools. Although we have never considered this option, we felt it was worthwhile to investigate the programming in place at these schools. We made an effort to look at middle schools across the country because data provided to us by the National Student Clearinghouse indicates that many Radnor students attend colleges and universities outside of Pennsylvania. In many cases, we contacted the schools directly to learn more about their programs. Our experience over many years has been that it is common practice for middle schools to offer selective accelerated classes in math, language arts, science, social studies, and world languages, and our review of middle school programming over the past several months has confirmed that this is still the case. The organization of this document is that the name of the school appears on the first page of its program information. Following pages are all related to the named page until another school or district name appears.

2 Council Rock Middle School 7th Grade shown 8th grade has same offerings and levels.

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10 Lake Washington Middle School

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16 Middle School Nomination Packet For Placement in Grades 7-8 High Ability Programs in School City of Mishawaka Student Birthdate Person nominating Teacher Parent Other School Current Grade Date Current Teacher Program Options Honors Courses for Grades 7-8 ~ John Young Middle School This program is designed for students in grades 7-8 who demonstrate high abilities in English, math, science, and/or social studies. Program Options ~ Select all that apply. English/Reading Math Science Social Studies Accelerated Courses for Grades 7-8~ John Young Middle School These courses give students in grades 7-8 an accelerated, enriched experience in problem/project based learning in math and science. Program Options ~ Select all that apply. English/Reading Math Science Social Studies Nomination Packet Components ~ All are required before the nomination can be considered. Nomination Form Parent Information Form Student Assessment Data Sheet Student Information Form Teacher Information Form Student Work Samples Appeal Process Parents, teachers, or the student may make an appeal in writing to the Director of High Ability Programs if the student is not selected for placement in the program. The director, along with the selection committee, will review the request and make a timely decision on the appeal. The parents, teacher(s), and/or student will be notified in writing for Selection Committee use only Recommendation for Placement for Honors English/Reading Math Science Social Studies Grade Accelerated English/Reading Math Science Social Studies Grade General education classroom Grade Letter to parent/guardian Notification to principal Notification to teacher Director of High Ability Programs Date

17 Student Assessment Data Sheet Student School Date Current Grade Scantron Performance Series ~ Fall 20 Winter 20 Spring 20 Summer 20 Teachers: Attach the most recent student reports for math and reading to this nomination packet. II. ISTEP+ ~ Spring 2011 Score Cut Score for PASS+ Check which applies Language Arts Pass Pass+ Writing Pass Pass+ Math Pass Pass+ Science Pass Pass+ III. Participation in MAC Program (if the student is being nominated for a math course) Student participated in: Grade 3 Grade 4 Grade 5 Grade 6 Most recent ALEKS course: IV. Orleans-Hanna Algebra Prognosis Test (if the student is being nominated for a math course) Total Score: Percentile Ranking: V. Student Samples

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