School & Classroom Management Summary

1. School Management Summary:

At Madison Middle School we feel educating students is a team effort. Faculty, staff, and administration are well trained professionals who are experts in their field. Decisions regarding policies and procedures are the joint effort of parents, teachers, administration, and staff and are based upon needs assessments that collect information from all affected parties. A Schoolwide Leadership Team compiled from a variety of stakeholders meets monthly to examine needs assessments and policies and reevaluate as necessary.
Madison Middle School organizes each grade into teams of 2 to 5 teachers, based on grade and teaching assignments. Individual teams are given jurisdiction over their groups of students, building their policies around the lattice work of policies set by the Schoolwide Leadership Team.
Each grade also has subject leaders who meet with relevant parties to discuss how we can best improve our instruction within each particular subject and grade.
Students also have an important say in what happens in their school. Individual teams have student councils or team leaders that help develop activities and give input on the day-to-day operations of the school.
Involving a variety of stakeholders in the decisions made regarding our school results in a greater pool of information and values, promotes buy in for adopted policies, and results in better school culture, academic growth, and high academic and social achievement.

2. Classroom Management Summary:

Quality instruction begins with strong classroom management. While each teacher brings strengths to the table and establishes their own management philosophy, there are a few commonalities in our school.

Strong classroom management begins with good planning. If a teacher has prepared organized, relevant, and motivating lessons they will have fewer problems with classroom management. With the adoption of a new language arts curriculum, we have been concentrating on giving students more control and responsibility over their educational experience.

Setting up a system of rewards and punishments based on classroom behaviors and being consistent in their implementation gives the students are more clear understanding of the expectations of the teacher and generally results in a well managed classroom. Teachers add their own classroom management strategies based on input from students, the strengths of the teacher, and the subject being taught. In order to share strong management techniques teachers share one strategy with one another at each faculty meeting. Other resources and training are available through district and building inservice, including an introduction to the philosophies of Harry Wong.