JFHMS

"All Our Best....All the Time"

Mission and Goals

It is our philosophy that the middle school's special purpose is to help young people gain an understanding of opportunities as they begin to make more and more decisions; and to increase mental, social, and emotional adjustment during the transition from childhood and early adolescence to later adolescence in high school. The middle school should meet the needs of students of greatly varying levels of maturity.

Our School must accept each child as an individual having special needs, abilities, and preferences, and should provide for that child a course of study that allows him to work to his potential. We should provide a challenging atmosphere for learning experiences, which will enrich the lives of our students. The school strives to foster creativity and appreciation of beauty. It should provide for the development of stable emotional, moral, and social values of behavior. Learning activities shall lead the student to understandings, attitudes, and behavior skills that will enable him to become an intelligent, creative, and economically self-sufficient member of a family, of the community, of democratic society, and of the world at large.

Optimum learning takes place when students are active participants in the learning process. This participation demands that the school curriculum and methods be of a flexible nature to meet changing social needs.

Since the school experience is not an isolated episode in the lives of young people but a process that supports and promotes the growth and maturation of individuals who go forth to power the activities and industries of their communities, then the school will use available educational resources in the community to help these individuals develop to their fullest potential. The community, administration, teachers, and students will work ALL TOGETHER NOW to strengthen cooperation in the educational process.

Objectives:

1. To provide experiences and activities that makes optimum use of physical, mental, social, emotional, moral, and aesthetic assets and abilities. Physical activities are developed through such programs as physical education, intramurals, and inter-school sports competition. Mental, social, emotional, and moral abilities are exercised in the classroom in problem-solving situations requiring group cooperation and effort. Student government, periodic student exchange with other county middle schools, and other activities also provide opportunities for use and development of these assets and abilities. Aesthetic abilities are developed through the art and music programs.

2. To help young people in the information, knowledge, facts, generalizing ability, and critical thinking by presenting a range of information and providing opportunities for the students to apply that information in club activities, science experiments, mathematical problem solving, creative and functional writing, performance in art, music, homemaking, and debates on current events.

3. To help young people develop skills and knowledge needed for education beyond high school or for employment, not only through providing purely academic experiences but through instruction in YES, Technology Education, Homemaking, Career Education, and Vocational Rehabilitation as well.

4. To facilitate an understanding of one's relationship to his ecological, physical, economic, and social environment by integrating and coordinating class offerings into a total program. English and social studies teachers are encouraged to coordinate their units in library research, public speaking, and essay writing so that skills developed in English may be put to use in social studies. Such units as ecology, economics, and anthropology help the student explore his or her place in American culture. Teachers are encouraged to relate their disciplines to others in the curriculum, since all subjects require language skills, and since knowledge in art, music, mathematics and science is required of intelligent members of our increasingly technological and leisure-oriented society.

5. To aid young people in developing an understanding and appreciation of people of different nationalities and ethnic groups and their contributions to the development of our nation and culture. In language arts, students are made aware of the contributions of foreign cultures and domestic ethnic groups of the English language. Social studies emphasize the pluralistic nature of U.S. government and culture. Music and art present the aesthetic contributions of varying nationalities and ethnic groups to Western Culture.

6. To encourage young people to acquire constructive creative life attitudes and habits for continuing their physical and mental health, such as cooperation, leadership, self-esteem, and respect for the rights of others by providing opportunities for decision making and group experiences such as student government, sports and similar activities, and also small project groups within the classroom.

7. To encourage young people to become aware of special interests and to develop them for personal growth, for a wide range of student activities that are a natural outgrowth of curriculum related experiences. Some of these activities include foreign language, crafts, and cooking and homemaking clubs.

8. To broaden the base for seeing your people as changing individuals even though they are part of a group, through such things as home visitations made by teachers and administration, and through the increasing use of performance contracting.