Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Middle schools may be a thing of the past
K-8 centers offer students continuity
Middle schools, once seen as a progressive replacement for junior highs, also appear to be on their way out.
In their place: K-8 centers, which offer a gentler pre-teen transition into the world of class changes, multiple teachers, electives and academic responsibility.
Palm Beach County schools plan to open at least three in the coming years. Broward has five; Miami-Dade is leading the pack with 47.
“These kids are with us for nine years,” said Robert Pappas, principal of Gulfstream Academy, a new K-8 school in Hallandale Beach. “I don’t know that K-8 will give us a specific advantage, but we will know our kids and will deliver high-quality instruction because we know them so well.”
Research is showing that students have an improved sense of social connection and superior academic results at K-8 centers, which can be found in every state.
In South Florida, problems abound in many middle schools, which educate sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders. Several in Palm Beach County are half empty, due to low grades from the state, reported discipline problems and competition from magnet and charter schools.
“They throw the kids into a completely different ecosystem at the worst possible time,” said Ryan Boylston, a Delray Beach parent whose son attends Plumosa School of the Arts, which is set to become a K-8 in the coming years. “A K-8 school keeps the kids together, kind of like private schools do. You see the same group of parents through the years. I
can already see the benefits of parents knowing each other all through school.”
K-8 centers were common across the country in the 19th and early 20th century. Then junior highs — which serve grades seven through nine — came into vogue as the population increased and enrollment grew, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. But by the 1960s, educators believed preteens needed a school of their own, a middle school, to focus on their distinctive needs.
But many preteens, as well as their parents, have come to fear middle schools today, seeing them as a cesspool of bullying, raging hormones and disappointing academics.
Studies show that some of parents’ concerns about traditional middle schools are valid.
Martin West, a Harvard education professor, found math and reading scores for many Florida students in traditional middle schools dropped from fifth to sixth grade and continued to plummet as middle school proceeded. But students in K-8 schools were more successful academically, he said.
“I had been skeptical to what extent this would be an important variable,” he said. “K-8 schools do seem to have some real advantages. Standalone middle schools seem to be difficult to run well.”
K-8s may have at least one disadvantage: Some have questioned whether teenagers should be at the same school as kindergartners, said Palm Beach County deputy superintendent David Christiansen. But, he said, this issue has not cropped up as a problem in studies.
At Gulfstream, K-3 students are in one building, the old Hallandale Elementary School, while fourthto eighth-graders are in a nearby building, an old adult education center.
Pappas said he makes sure students transition smoothly from fifth to sixth grade — when they traditionally move from elementary to middle school and suffer an academic lag — by making sure teachers update each other regularly on students’ progress.
Next year he plans to train teachers about the emotional lives of preteens.
Many private schools have K-8 centers, including Pine Crest School’s Boca Raton campus, as do charter schools, such as Franklin Academy and Ben Gamla Charter Schools, both in Palm Beach and Broward counties.
Pine Crest parent Naomi Steinberg, whose son is a senior, said she liked the seamless transition from elementary to middle school, even though each had a different administration.
“The value comes in a smooth curriculum and emotional continuity,” she said. “I didn’t have to get to know a whole new system. It was a different space but under one umbrella that’s known you and nurtured you.”
Miami-Dade schools have already taken note of this single-umbrella concept. They began a pilot program with two K-8 centers in 1998 and have steadily added centers throughout the years.
Researchers began comparing the centers with existing middle schools and found that parents, students and school staff liked the K-8 schools better. At the same time, students had better attendance, fewer suspensions and superior academic skills.
The first K-8 school in Palm Beach County will be Hidden Oaks in Boynton Beach, which will add sixth grade next year and seventh and eighth in the coming years. The school has space to expand: There is room for 970 students, but there are only 711.
“Kids are saying, ‘You mean I can stay?’ ” Principal Sari Myers said. “I think parents will like it, too, knowing it’s a smaller, selfcontained environment.”
Still, Myers anticipates several challenges, including ballfields that are not built for middle-school kids and the lack of a gymnasium. She said kids still will be able to join interscholastic sports teams.
Palm Beach County plans to open at least two more centers in the coming years, at Addison Mizner Elementary in Boca Raton and Plumosa School of the Arts in Delray Beach.
Christiansen said the district is going to choose new K-8 schools based on an assortment of factors, including location, space and programs already available in the area.
He likes the idea of students developing a skill, such as a foreign language or musical instrument, at one continuous site.
“You’re going to get pretty good at something if you stick to it for nine years,” he said.