Message from our Principal

Schedule changes to provide more academic interventions The 2006-07 daily schedule at BMS will feature a few new wrinkles, designed to provide more academic interventions for students, during the school day. In Grade 8, Ms. Snowdeal's Career Prep class will again be part of the Orange/Black/White schedule, meeting every third day, but the focus will change. Students will begin the year reviewing organizational skills, study skills, and tips for preparing for projects and tests. After these lessons, and approximately halfway through the first trimester, we will move any students who are experiencing academic difficulties into a small-group tutoring format, to provide extra help, before those students fail classes for the first semester. Students who are having academic success will continue in the Career Prep class, with an eye toward individual plans for the future. We will also integrate five to ten Life Skills lessons between Career Prep and Mr. Hutchins' trimester Wellness course, as we complete the third year of our three-year plan to provide a health and wellness curriculum for all BMS students. Mr. Dyer will continue to teach the Grade 6 and Grade 7 Health units. In addition to Wellness classes, the trimester courses in Grade 8 will be Art and Modern Languages (French and Spanish); the Orange/Black/White rotation will be Career Prep, Physical Education, and Guided Study or Band. The Grade 8 core schedule will continue to offer 80-minute Language Arts/Reading blocks, as well as an Algebra group designed to cover the high school Algebra One curriculum. The rest of the eighth grade math classes will feature our MathScapes curriculum, with pre- Algebra concepts and differentiated instruction for individuals and groups of students within the classroom. History and Science classes round out the Grade 8 core curriculum. Supplemental instruction from Gifted and Talented Teacher Chris Newcomb will be available for identified students in Grades 6, 7, and 8. In Grade 7, we have designed an 80-minute daily math block to give students more time to work on the MathScapes units, with additional time to improve computational skills. Most of our seventh graders will have the extended math block, in conjunction with a twelve-week, trimester Maine Studies class. Some students will have a daily 40- minute math class, a 40-minute social studies class, and the twelveweek Maine Studies course. To improve some students' literacy skills, we will also offer a separate, small group reading comprehension class, as part of the Grade 7 core curriculum, in addition to supplemental reading assistance from Mr. Al Chambers, in our library. We will also provide interventions for struggling students during Guided Study times. The Grade 7 trimester classes will continue to be Art, Modern Languages, and Maine Studies. Orange/Black/White classes will be Health, Physical Education, and Guided Study or Band. These classes will meet every third day, throughout the school year. In Grade 6, the core class schedule of Language Arts/Reading, Math, Science, and Social Studies remains unchanged. Ms. Willis and Mr. Bearor will continue to swap students for Science and Social Studies classes, and Ms. Schwigan and Ms. McDonough will do the same. Ms. Meehan will continue to teach all subjects to her group of students. What will change in the Grade 6 schedule is the additional layer of interventions to assist students. Computer class will change from a twelve-week, trimester course to a year-long class, enabling sixth graders�the only class of students who will not have laptop computers provided by the State of Maine�to stay connected with technology, and the computer lab, for the entire school year. Health will replace Computer class in the trimester schedule, joining Art and Modern Languages. The Orange/Black/White classes in Grade 6 will be Computer, Physical Education, and Guided Study or Band. We also plan to offer a supplemental reading comprehension class in the afternoons, as well as small group help sessions during Guided Study times. Mr. Chambers will provide some of the reading help, in the library, and classroom teachers and educational technicians will run the small group sessions. The goal of these schedule changes at Brewer Middle School is to improve the chances for academic success for all students, challenging those who are ready to go beyond the curriculum, while also providing in-school supports to those who struggle to master the concepts.