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So last night we went to our first middle school open house as we try to make a decision on where we would like our youngest daughter to go next year. For those unfamiliar, the way the Jefferson County public school system (JCPS) works is that you have 3 options for middle schools. The first is to just let your kid go to their ‘reside’ school which is the school closest to your house. We don’t like that option because the school closest to us has a terrible reputation and our daughters only know it as ‘the school where kids fight all the time’.

The second option is to get your child into a ‘traditional school’ which is one of about 6 middle schools we have in the system that are on the traditional program. These schools focus on the basic reading, writing, artithmetic model, plus foreign language, social studies and art. All of them have a good reputation, but the high-level of structure can be tough for some kids. Our oldest daughter was lucky enough to get into a traditional program and she loved it at her school, but for several reasons we don’t think the traditional program is the best fit for our other daughter (my wife calls her a ‘free spirit’ which is a nice way of saying she’s kind of weird – but weird in a good way). An additional problem even if we did choose this option is that the pipeline from traditional elementary schools to traditional middle schools has gotten so tight that there is no room for kids coming from a regular elementary school anymore.

The third option is a ‘magnet’ program. Several schools in the district have these. Some have a math and science magnet, one is performing arts and the one we are most interested in has an International Studies program. We thought this would be an interesting program for our daughter, but the more important thing is that we really like the school.  When we visited last night I loved that it was an old building (circa 1920’s by my estimate) and we liked what we saw. We are also impressed with a unique program they use called looping. 

Looping is a system where the teachers that our daughter would have next year as a 6th grader would stay with her for all 3 years at the school. The teachers would move up each year with the kids and would develop a much tighter bond and also become more aware of the student’s strengths and weaknesses. As we were told last night, this also means when the kids return from summer break they pick up right where they left off and there is no get-to-know you period. School officials estimate this gives kids an extra month of learning within the 3 years they are there. We were also told that when the program was first tried in the school using an experimental group, their standardized test scores were an average 20% better than the kids that didn’t loop. Now it is a school-wide program and the teachers apparently love it.

So that’s our life right now until December when we submit all of our paperwork and start praying (reminder: ask my mother who the patron saint of education is). We have a few more schools to visit, but I think my wife and I have already made up our minds. Now we just have to convince the kid who actually has to go there.