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Dear Mason District Community,
During the 1990-1991 school year, the Fairfax County School Board piloted a grade level change at Glasgow, Holmes, and Poe Middle Schools, in which these schools adopted a Grades 6-8 configuration.
In April 1991, the School Board approved this model for all FCPS middle schools, but this change was never implemented across the rest of the school division.
Recently, parents have raised questions about why these three schools use a Grade 6-8 model, while the rest of FCPS’ middle schools use a Grade 7-8 model, either in a stand-alone building or within a secondary school that extends through Grade 12.
This advocacy, along with numerous gaps which became evident during the planning of virtual learning and the subsequent phasing of in-person instruction, resulted in two follow-on motions which I presented as part of the CIP approval process on February 4, 2021. The School Board unanimously approved my two follow-on motions to assess the configuration of Mason District middle schools and provide research regarding the most effective grade configuration:
I move that the School Board direct the Superintendent to conduct a program audit of middle schools with grade six to determine if the current grade level configuration offers the most efficient use of facilities and/or meets instructional best practices. (Anderson)
I move that the School Board direct the Superintendent to engage the Mason District community to obtain parental perspective on the placement of grade six in middle school. (Anderson)
The first follow-on motion culminated in research which generally shows the quality of instruction at a school is more important than the grade arrangement. See the Grade 6 in Middle School Executive Summary for details.
As per the second follow-on motion, I urge the Mason Community to participate in this engagement opportunity to learn about each middle school grade configuration and share their feedback.
Parent/Caregiver engagement for Poe, Holmes, and Glasgow Middle Schools and the elementary feeder schools is now scheduled as follows:
- Parent/Caregiver Meetings. Interpretation services available in Amharic, Arabic, Korean and Spanish. American Sign Language available on request.
- Focus groups
- Survey in eight languages (coming March 25 via email)
See the Middle School Grade Level Configuration webpage for more information.
The views contained within this newsletter reflect the views of the individual school board member who is the publisher of this newsletter and may not reflect the views of the Fairfax County School Board.
© 2020 Fairfax County Public Schools, Fairfax County, Virginia
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