Amherst Middle School staff present curriculum, attendance and extracurricular updates

Mr. Lonczak, principal of Amherst Middle School, and his administrative team presented a multi-part update to the Board of Education covering instructional priorities, student supports and extracurricular programming.

The presentation said the building's work this year is tied to the district strategic plan and focuses on three pillars: teaching and learning, student life, and school culture. Mr. Lonczak highlighted efforts to expand specially designed instruction integrated co-teaching (SDI/ITC), to continue collaborative instructional strategies (including the Kagan model) and to complete state-mandated changes tied to computer-based testing.

Derek Adame, identified as a newly tenured assistant principal, explained a renewed emphasis on executive-functioning skills for middle-school students. He described a teacher book study and practical classroom strategies aimed at helping students manage time, initiate work and improve working memory, cognitive flexibility and self-regulation.

The school introduced a new reading intervention, Just Words, delivered by AIS teachers. An AIS teacher described the program as a ‘‘scientifically based, systematic and sequential' curriculum that teaches word structure, syllable types and common Latin roots to build reading and spelling automaticity.’’ Presenters said three AIS teachers are running three small sections of roughly four to six students each.

Staff reported early positive results from attendance interventions. The presentation said 16% of students were chronically absent in 2022-23 and that the school has seen a four percentage-point reduction since interventions began. Among the students identified as chronically absent, presenters showed a decline in average absentee days from about 20% in October to roughly 13% four months later; staff credited outreach such as letters, phone calls and in-person meetings.

Student-life and extracurricular offerings the presenters highlighted included a Title II-funded after-school English Learner (E&L) club (about 16 regular participants), a Girls in STEM club with roughly 20 participants and an expanded technology/robotics program with 30'to—35 students competing in local events. The mentoring program was described as volunteer-run with roughly 30 staff mentors and about 45 mentees who meet weekly by study hall or before- or after-school time. Intramurals participation was said to have risen from 60'to—80 typical daily participants to more than 100 on some days. The musical involved more than 100 students this year, described as about 20% of the building.

Presenters also recounted a student-led fundraising effort that raised more than $1,500 for a school bus driver's clinic in South Sudan; art students are designing murals for hallway displays; and students produced classroom videos and reflections as part of a sixth-grade seminar on character, tolerance and executive-function goals.

Board members asked several operational questions during and after the presentation, including details on intervention delivery and mentoring schedules. Staff said mentoring typically occurs before school, during study hall or over students' lunches.

Provenance: Presentation and Q&A during the superintendent's report and middle-school update.

Proposed next steps noted by presenters included continued professional development on culturally responsive teaching and annual review of district AI policy to keep classroom guidance current with changing tools.

Provenance: Excerpted from the meeting transcript covering the Amherst Middle School update.