Over this past year, the Reimagining Middle School (RMS) Steering Committee has worked to reimagine the middle school experience to be one that offers a developmentally responsive and student-centered education that is rooted in relationships, meets students where they are, supports social interactions and social emotional needs, and creates learning environments that are rich, rigorous and meaningful.
Meeting 18 times between August 2022 and June 2023, the RMS committee utilized the Equity-Centered Design Thinking process to guide their efforts, which involved extensive stakeholder engagement. The committee would like to express their deep appreciation to all those who contributed input during the three RMS Listening Campaigns. By leveraging the data collected through these campaigns, along with the insights and expertise of the committee members, the committee is delighted to announce the completion of a successful presentation of their recommendations to BSD’s Incoming Superintendent, Dr. Kelly Aramaki, and the district’s executive team.
The RMS Steering Committee recommends two models that show great potential for reimagining our comprehensive middle schools:
- Advisory/Homeroom
- Problem-Based Learning (PBL)
These models align with the district’s ongoing Global Competencies curriculum initiative. To learn more about the RMS recommendations, please visit the Reimagining Middle Schools Steering Committee page.
Take Part in RMS Design
The next steps in reimagining middle schools is to create two design teams — one for Advisory/Homeroom and one for PBL. These teams will be comprised of educators, community members and administrators. The design teams will spearhead the design, development and implementation of the models.
Do you have a deep understanding of and appreciation for either Advisory/Homeroom or Problem-Based Learning? Do you want to use your expertise to make a difference in the lives of our middle schoolers? Are you interested in being on one of the teams? We invite you to let us know by submitting the RMS Design Team Interest Form. You can learn more about the responsibilities of the teams by reading the Design Team Responsibilities.
For questions or additional information, please contact the RMS project lead Dr. Melisa Macias, Teaching and Learning Director at [email protected].