The Morgan Hill Unified School District Board of Education is
expected to consider in the next few weeks whether to move to a
sixth-through-eighth grade middle school system.
Morgan Hill – The Morgan Hill Unified School District Board of Education is expected to consider in the next few weeks whether to move to a sixth-through-eighth grade middle school system.
The district’s two middle schools, Lewis H. Britton Middle and Martin Murphy Middle schools, are now functioning under a 7-8 grade system.
With the opening of Sobrato High School for the 2004-05 school year, ninth-grade students moved out of the middle schools and into the high schools, leaving speculation that the district might consider moving sixth graders to the middle schools.
No move has been made in that direction; however with a new superintendent and two new assistants coming from a district with a 6-8 middle schools “the superintendent has not put it on the agenda,” Assistant Superintendent Michael Johnson said. “It would be premature for me to say anything about this.”
During Johnson’s detailed presentation on curriculum alignment to school trustees on May 23, he outlined what the district is doing and where the district will go with curriculum for three subjects district officials are calling “gatekeeper” subjects, including math, science and English/language arts. As he discussed each of the three disciplines, he outlined curriculum changes at the secondary level and often at the K-5 level.
“It’s true that the curriculum across the state is geared to K-5, 6-8 and 7-12,” Superintendent Alan Nishino. “I’ve not brought anything to the board, and the board has not discussed it. We have not taken any serious run with that. It’s something that has been discussed at an internal level, but it’s not going anywhere right now. The time to do it would have been when the ninth graders left the middle schools.”
Board of Education President Mike Hickey did not return a call for comment before presstime Friday.
Morgan Hill Federation of Teachers President Donna Foster said she had not been involved in discussions about a possible change in middle school configuration.
“There has been no formal discussion that I’m aware of,” she said. “That’s the kind of curricular decision that should take place involving the secondary steering committee and at a public meeting. As I understand it, some of the state standards are aligned and some textbooks are aligned so that the 6-8 configuration is more apropos.”
The secondary steering committee is composed of principals, vice principals and department chair persons at the secondary level.
Fifteen districts in Santa Clara County have 6-8 grade middle schools, while six districts, other than Morgan Hill Unified School District, have only seventh and eighth grade students in middle schools, including Milpitas School District, Oak Grove School District, Evergreen School District, Franklin McKinley School District, Los Altos School District and Mt. Pleasant School District.
