Over the past 20 years, CMS has followed the national trend and veered away from the traditional junior high school model toward a middle school educational philosophy. The forethought put into the design of CMS embraced the move from an institutional, ability grouped model to a collaborative team approach.
To address the needs of all children, programming has changed and continues to change to better address those needs including curriculum, student services and mandated supports alterations and/or additions. Due to the physical restrictions of the current CMS building, changes in programming have required carving out additional instructional spaces sometimes in spaces that were not intended for student instruction.
Regular Education Curriculum Changes
Trend
- Shift away from Tech. Ed. Classes
- Shift away from Family Consumer Sciences
- Large increase in music participation
- Increase in World Language offerings
- Added courses within past 5 years
- 6th grade art (re-introduced)
- Leadership studies
- Geo-math
- Orchestra
- Alternative PE
- On-line course offerings
Adjustments to Date
- Decrease in Tech Ed. staff & re-purpose rooms
- Decrease in FCS staff & re-purpose rooms
- Music areas increased which required using regular educational classroom space
- 6th grade art in regular classrooms
- 3 additional teachers have been hired since the school opened in 1998 for a total of 7 teachers. There is only 1 dedicated foreign language classroom. Six of our 7 foreign language teachers travel with curriculum/instructional carts.
- Additional courses continue to push teaching into areas not designed as instructional space
Student Support Added Since 2010
Trends
- Supplemental Math
- Replacement Math
- Supplemental Writing
- Specialized Reading Program
- Organization Skills
- Assisted Study Hall
- Global Skills
- Alternative PE
Adjustments to Date
- Less-used space within building has been re-purposed
- Increased course offering in an effort to identify and solve issues that if unaddressed often evolve to more severe problems
- Addition of courses to meet state guidelines
- Staff added to meet needs
- Non-classroom space (such as team rooms) is being used for classroom teaching
Changes to Service Children with Special Education Needs
As expected, individual special education needs change from year-to-year and temporary accommodations and modifications are made to meet those needs through the Individual Education Plan (IEP) process as dictated by federal law. These accommodations and modifications drive the types of services necessary to educate all children. However, the adequate spaces needed to accommodate these services and service providers are significantly straining the building and negatively impacting all children attending CMS. Due to the privacy restrictions associated with special education populations, we have purposefully not included disability data that depict the changes in population pertaining to types of disabilities over time.
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- Re-purposed storage closets, office spaces, Tech Ed classroom and FCS classroom to fulfill space requirements for delivering special education services. CMS was constructed with no dedicated special education spaces due to total inclusion educational philosophy which was prevalent in the early 1990’s;
- Increased number of paraprofessionals by 17 since 2010 to meet increasing demand as dictated through the IEP (individual education program) process;
- Increased the number of special education teachers by 3 since 2010;
- Hired additional staff including speech pathologist, behavior counselor/advisor, learning area leaders (LAL), and special education administrator;
- Reduction in the number of adult bathrooms to accommodate students that need mechanical lift assistance.