Summit Middle School

Mission

To provide a rigorous, academic curriculum that promotes high levels of student effort and academic achievement.
To foster high self-esteem through stimulating intellectual challenge and meaningful academic accomplishment.
To inspire in students a lifelong love of learning and a desire for self-development.
To create a community of peers who value scholarship, academic achievement, and creativity.
To serve as an excellent preparation for students intending to study in the International Baccalaureate program and other college-preparatory high school programs.

Goals and Objectives

For the Program

To expand educational choices within the Boulder Valley School District by offering middle school students the opportunity to enroll in a rigorous academic program.
To provide the option of advanced classes for any student on a self-selecting basis.
To group students according to subject mastery rather than grade classification or age.
To challenge each student in every course.
To elicit academic achievement commensurate with each student's ability.
To maintain an unwavering commitment to the mastery of educational fundamentals (content) and the development of critical-thinking skills (process).
To enhance each student's social and emotional development and to foster positive relationships among peers.
To recognize that its customers are students, parents and the community and to be responsive and accountable to their concerns.
To strive to reflect the diverse population of the Boulder Valley School District.
To meet or exceed District and State curriculum, content, and performance standards.
To monitor the program and evaluate it regularly.
To implement a code of conduct that will insure safety, civility, and an optimum learning environment.

For the Student

To realize one's intellectual and personal potential.
To have high expectations for performance in all curriculum areas.
To eagerly meet academic challenges and learn to take intellectual risks.
To reason critically, solve problems creatively, develop intellectual integrity, tolerate ambiguity, and express ideas competently and fluently in oral and written presentations.
To acquire a genuine love of learning that will be a lifelong source of strength and enjoyment.
To internalize the values of personal responsibility, individual freedom, and respect for others.
To appreciate the human capacity and drive to enjoy and improve the quality of life over time.
To acquire a firm understanding and command of the English language as a means of communication and to develop admiration for the elegance and richness of human expression.
To begin or continue the study of a foreign language in 6th grade and to continue for the duration of the middle school years.
To acquire research skills as a means of developing individualized learning, independent thinking, and self-reliance.

For the Faculty

To continue intellectual and professional development and to pursue further education in a primary academic discipline.
To understand, model and foster independent thinking skills, creative problem solving, and abstract reasoning.
To develop with parents and students a cooperative partnership based on mutual respect and objectivity.
To show empathy and understanding and to share ideas and observations with the students and the parents.
To assess student performance frequently and objectively.

Why Does Summit Use Ability Grouping?

An Analysis of the Research on Ability Grouping:
Historical and Contemporary Perspectives (Abstract)

James A. Kulik, Ph.D.
The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan
February 1992

Researchers have struggled for decades to find answers to questions about ability grouping. Does anyone benefit from it? Who benefits most? Does grouping harm anyone? How? How much? Why? Research reviewers have never reached agreement about the findings. For every research reviewer who has concluded that grouping is helpful, another has concluded that it is harmful. Today, however, reviewers are using statistical methods to organize and interpret the research literature on grouping, and they are more hopeful than ever before of coming to a consensus on what the research says. They have painstakingly catalogued the features and results of hundreds of studies, and with the help of new statistical methods, they are now drawing a composite picture of the studies and findings on grouping. In his 1976 presidential address to the American Educational Research Association, Glass coined the term meta-analysis to describe this statistical approach to viewing research literature.

Meta-analytic reviews have already shown that the effects of grouping programs depend on their features. Some grouping programs have little or no effect on students; other programs have moderate effects; and still other programs have large effects. The key distinction is among (a) programs in which all ability groups follow the same curriculum; (b) programs in which all groups follow curricula adjusted to their ability; and (c) programs that make curricular and other adjustments for the special needs of highly talented learners.

Programs that entail only minor adjustment of course content for ability groups usually have little or no effect on student achievement. In some grouping programs, for example, school administrators assign students by test scores and school records to high, middle, and low classes, and they expect all groups to follow the same basic curriculum. The traditional name for this approach is XYZ grouping. Pupils in middle and lower classes in XYZ programs learn the same amount as equivalent pupils do in mixed classes. Students in the top classes in XYZ programs outperform equivalent pupils from mixed classes by about one month on a grade-equivalent scale. Self-esteem of lower aptitude students rises slightly and self-esteem of higher aptitude students drops slightly in XYZ classes.

Grouping programs that entail more substantial adjustment of curriculum to ability have clear positive effects on children. Cross-grade and within-class programs, for example, provide both grouping and curricular adjustment in reading and arithmetic for elementary school pupils. Pupils in such grouping programs outperform equivalent control students from mixed-ability classes by two to three months on a grade-equivalent scale.

Programs of enrichment and acceleration, which usually involve the greatest amount of curricular adjustment, have the largest effects on student learning. In typical evaluation studies, talented students from accelerated classes outperform non-accelerates of the same age and IQ by almost one full year on achievement tests. Talented students from enriched classes outperform initially equivalent students from conventional classes by 4 to 5 months on grade equivalent scales.