ACADEMIC FOCUS

Shue-Medill Middle School 2011-2012

Shue-Medill, the place where "Reading for Understanding" is our Instructional Focus goal, strives to provide our students with academic excellence by offering classes that meet the specific needs of each student. Some of the classes that meet specific needs offered at Shue are Read 180, Scholastic 44, Talent Development, Math Mania, and support labs for Reading, Math, and Special Education. In these classes, students have the opportunity and are encouraged to gather knowledge from their starting point and soar to their fullest potential. Academic Excellence is evident as students travel on their academic journey that immerses them in the use of school-wide common language while engaged in the school's targeted school-wide best practice strategies. As a Learning Focused School, the staff has decided to use many of the Learning Focused strategies to address the three main components of our school-wide focuses of "Extended Thinking, Summarizing, and Vocabulary". Teachers create extended thinking lessons using the LFS extending thinking lesson plan which incorporates summarizing through out the lesson. As a school, we decided to use the common graphic organizer for the "Frayer Model" as a vocabulary study tool. The school is moving in the direction of utilizing The Learning Focused Student Learning Map and the Unit Learning Map as a means to communicate both our curriculum and Instructional Focus with students and parents.

The teachers and administrators at Shue-Medill work collaboratively in Professional Learning Communities (PLCs to collect and evaluate data from internal measurements and MAP scores. The data is used to drive the decisions made to assist our students in knowing, understanding and pursuing the vision of our Instructional Focus, "Reading with Understanding." The Advisee Program is the culmination of all staff members assisting students in using their personal data to set goals to increase achievement. The Advisee program encourages teachers to work with a small group of about fifteen students as a mentor. Teachers discuss and explain the data to each student. The one on one discussions help the students make their personnel goals to increase academic achievement.

The Shue-Medill Family prides itself in using open communication to create bonds between the Shue staff, students and the surrounding Newark community to support our Instructional Focus. For the past two years, our Vision 2015 Instructional Focus of "Read with Understanding" emphasizes the skills of Extended Thinking, Summarizing, and Vocabulary Development". These skills are highlighted in all of our activities and communications. The communication of our vision is fostered through activities such as Family Night, International Night, school health fair, the mentoring program, can food drives for the Delaware Food Bank, adopting and cleaning a highway, and working with the Pearce Q. foundation to increase awareness of childhood cancer. The students participated by writing essays and poems to increase awareness of childhood cancer. The students and staff also participated in a fundraiser entitled, "Put a Lid on for Childhood Cancer". Many students also participated in an essay contest to celebrate Black History month. Each of the three winning essays were shared with the school and the community during the Black History program where a diverse group of students shared their understandings through creative dance, singing, essays, and interpretation. Some of the effective ways Shue communicates important information are the use of the Parent Link System, our community Coordinator, and our new school website.