Middle school searches for an identity

When new school facilities were built east of Sisters four years ago, the new building absorbed students from grades 7-12 without making any real distinction between middle school and high school.

Now school officials are trying to deal with an identity crisis among middle school students.

Sisters school officials and the Family Access Network held a barbecue September 12 to recruit parents of seventh graders to help study this and other issues.

Parents are also being asked to become part of a Middle School Development Team.

Youngsters in grades 6-8 -- described by Assistant Principal Rich Shultz as "hormones with feet"--are in the throes of trying to define who and what they are. Not knowing where they fit in at a school dominated by high school students can leave them even more bewildered.

The situation is no laughing matter for teachers and administrators.

Shultz was directed by Superintendent Swisher to study the situation after teachers complained that there is no clear identity that separates the middle school from the high school.

Before the new school was built, the middle school was in town near the grade school and it was clearly separate, according to Swisher.

Swisher wants to give seventh graders a "homeroom teacher." Seventh graders would have at least three classes with the homeroom teacher before going off to other classes such as physical education and music. Presently, these youngsters have as many as eight teachers a day. Swisher believes that having a homeroom teacher gives children a sense of comfort and security.

Other ways will be explored to help establish a middle school within the present middle/high school complex.

Swisher wants to form a Middle School Site Council to recommend a long-range plan. That plan could include a new middle school,

Swisher said some people in the community indicate that one of the reasons for the failure of last year's proposed $3.5 million bond issue to renovate old, existing facilities downtown was that it did not go far enough.

According to Swisher, some community members expressed the belief that the measure should have proposed facilities that could deal with growth over a long term -- that still another bond election would have soon been needed to handle continuing growth.

Teresa Slavkovsky, who heads the Sisters Family Access Network, noted that parent participation in school activities drops off dramatically as youngsters enter seventh grade.

She said the FAN barbecue provided the opportunity to let parents know that the middle school is a friendly place and still needs parents' help.

She said more than half the seventh graders and their parents were present at the barbecue.