Studied reasons for tardiness given by students in private middle school for girls. Found that some sort of transportation problem was the most common reason, followed by health-related causes, sleeping habits, family-related excuses, no reason given, and miscellaneous excuses. (KB)

Concerned with increasing numbers of student fights, a Maryland middle school initiated a peer-mediation program to help students deal effectively with conflict. Peer mediators received training emphasizing confidentiality, rephrasing, and cooperation. After one year, the number of suspensions and student arguments decreased, school climate…

During 3-year period, Arizona junior high school's site-based team developed and implemented 10-step process for becoming middle school. They assessed the school and community, researched school reform, built a team, developed a mission statement, set goals and empowered staff members, established teaching teams, trained staff members and parents,…

Describes successful programs in urban middle schools that focus on bringing students and their families together. (MLF)

Middle school students' real-life interests and preoccupations with themselves make them ideally suited to enjoy reading. Lists eight premises about teaching writing that have parallels in the teaching of literature. (12 references) (MLF)

A Connecticut middle school has developed a student plan book that is a communication tool between school and students' homes. Students use the book to record homework assignments and daily grades and take the book home every night so that parents can see the students' grades and assigned homework. (MLF)

Milwaukee's African-American Immersion Middle School is designed to negate and/or eliminate the institutional and attitudinal influences impeding African-American students' academic success. Although the school mission will promote an egalitarian view, teachers will be expected and encouraged to draw on African-American students' life experiences.…

Participating in a transition to a middle-level school provides the most potential for professional growth within a given school culture. In this article, a former middle school principal shows how a content-oriented, somewhat inflexible veteran seventh-grade social studies teacher reluctantly embraced middle-school teaming and eventually…

A middle school in River Falls, Wisconsin, exemplifies middle-level philosophy by providing individualized learning programs, a core curriculum, a guidance program, education for citizenship, and cocurricular activities. The school program emphasizes enhanced exploratory learning opportunities, team-teaching of core subjects, and a…

Briefly reviews the development of core curricula and interdisciplinary teaming in junior high/middle schools from the mid-1950s to the present. A recent study of 15,000 Maine eighth graders shows that schools using the middle-school, interdisciplinary approach outscored their junior high school peers enrolled in single-discipline subjects by 58…

Teachers can use learning style assessment instruments such as the NASSP Learning Style Profile to make decisions about their teaching methodology and program placement. This article discusses the benefits of learning style assessment for middle school students and outlines ways to apply results and increase teacher effectiveness at varying…

Because families and communities often fail to meet adolescents' need to belong to a productive, functional organization, schools are increasingly fulfilling this role. Membership depends on social bonding, which has four elements: attachment, commitment, involvement, and belief. Principals can remove impediments to membership by fostering a sense…

An assessment system developed by Center for Leadership in School Reform expands traditional self-assessment concept; using a public trial format, a school faces charges about its restructuring progress. The system, which encourages participatory leadership, is conducted in several stages and focuses change efforts on developing a shared vision,…

Young African American males' role models are those in the entertainment and sports arenas. Few see themselves as scholars, contributing to the common good. To counteract teachers' low expectations of black males' performance, educators at Benjamin Tasker Middle School in Bowie, Maryland, established African-American Achievers, a program that…

According to two recent surveys, middle-level administrators' essential job skills include an ability to understand developing adolescents' characteristics and needs, develop and communicate a vital, responsive school philosophy, promote shared decision making, guide creation of an interdisciplinary team organization, develop a continuous school…