Jacksonville Middle School proposes STEAM-focused 'house' schedule with built-in intervention
Get AI-powered insights, summaries, and transcripts
Sign Up Free
Summary
District leaders presented a master schedule for Jacksonville Middle School that would group sixth–eighth graders into five-class 'house' teams with 80-minute blocks split into 50 minutes of content and 30 minutes of intervention; administrators said no current positions would be eliminated and an accelerated track could lead to an associate degree.
Jacksonville Middle School staff on Monday outlined a proposed master schedule that would group students into five-class 'house' teams designed to reduce hallway congestion, coordinate bathroom and intervention time and create a direct pathway into high-school career and technical education.
Gail Biggs, principal at Jacksonville Middle School, said scholars would be clustered into cohorts that rotate among four core classes and one CTE class, with exceptions for PE, art and music. "One of the things that we want ... is a pathway to success," Biggs said, describing the plan to create vertical alignment from elementary through high school.
Under the proposal, class periods would be 80 minutes long; Biggs described the first 50 minutes as content instruction and the last 30 minutes as intervention time so students could receive targeted help from the content teacher. The schedule would embed STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and math) through CTE offerings aligned to the high school academy, administrators said.
Ricky Noble, who the district identified as a STEAM and GT lead, described an "accelerated house" intended for higher-performing students; Noble said the district is working on a memorandum of understanding so students could be positioned to earn college credit down the line. "The goal is by eighth grade that they would have a credit for English I, Algebra I, and physical science," Noble said.
Presenters told the board that the plan would not eliminate any current positions and that staff licensure had been reviewed so teachers could be reassigned where appropriate. The administration proposed keeping cohorts together as students advance unless there are extenuating circumstances.
Board members asked several clarifying questions, including how partial enrollment in accelerated courses would be handled and whether the associate pathway partner was Pulaski Tech; presenters answered the associate pathway was envisioned through a partner that they named in the meeting.
Next steps: administration asked the board to review the draft schedule; presenters requested feedback and said details — including cohort assignments, MOU language and final schedules — would be refined in coming weeks.