One thing that Dr. Rose and I talked about frequently was that we would have the time to do this effectively, and I think we feel very confident about that. One of our neighboring school districts did it in a year—when people came in to the beginning of the school year they were a middle school. And that was the beginning of the story as far as they were concerned. We know that they went through a lot of pain and suffering instantaneously to do that, and I'm sure probably given the opportunity would have preferred to do it the way we are able to do it.

So when we engage in what is approximately a three year transitional program, we've been able to study, we have sent our staff all over the state to the different schools that you see listed there to study and investigate these programs and basically as Mr. Bernlohr indicated what's good for students, what's good for kids, what is good for the kids of Beavercreek.

I really do appreciate the people who came here tonight to tell us what their concerns were because they represent that support contingent out there in the community that's concerned about what students are going to be able to do and what kind of opportunities we're going to have for them in our educational system.

But I think I want to take an opportunity to—kind of—to assuage some of their fears by saying that the change to middle schools is a pardigm shift for us and we're doing it over a three year period so we can research and carefully examine everything that needs to be done. Our plans are to provide an effective, accelerated, educational opportunity for all of our kids.

I'm a firm believer that everyone should have the opportunity to get to two standard deviations above the mean. And I'm not so certain that everyone fits in the hump of the bell curve. I think there can be such things as skewed bell curves when given the opportunity to study and research these situations and we have an excellent teaching staff like we have that can provide the kind of programs that our students are capable of doing.

I think—I want to send a message to our community that we are concerned about that, that we want to do that, that we have geared our entire program to doing this kind of analysis, and that when we are prepared to make the change to middle school and this board is prepared to do that, that we will have researched every possible avenue, and taken into consideration every need of every child in our system, and at that point we'll probably have about 6800 of them, and every one of those 6800 students deserves the opportunity to achieve and be successful.

So I would like to be an optimist, and you know me, I'm the incurable optimist around here. I believe we can do that, Dr Rose believes we can do that, Mr Ruddle, Dr. Shanon, Dr Rarick, everybody that works in our system. You can see the eloquent presentations for our blue ribbon schools—you can see that we have had two of those. You can see tremendous accomplishments that the system provides.

That doesn't necessarily come from tracking.

It comes from the innate capabilities of the children who listen to what the teachers say and read the material that's provided and have this tremendous backlog of experiences they bring into the picture. I think that's what makes our students what they are today. And I think when we look at the middle school concept, we are taking them from where they are, and carrying them forward. I think that says something definite. I still believe we can bring everybody up to two standard deviations above the mean. It's known research that indicates that if you remove time as a constant and make academic achievement a constant you have an opportunity to do that.

And when I listen to our principals talk about what kind of programs the staff is doing in the grouping, and our venture capital grants the state provided to us which we are utilizing to develop this program, when you hear the commitment coming from those people and you hear the state superintendent walk through our programs at Ferguson, and listen to the conversations coming from the parents who are present and from the teachers who are part of the grouping and the blocking programs, you hear wonderful things happening. You hear people excited about differentiated instruction and collaborative learning. You here those wonderful things taking place. The superintendent was impressed with the students and the parents and the teachers that he talked to at Ferguson, was he not Dr Rose?

And that's the innovative cutting edge program we're talking about Beavercreek. So I guess I feel this way:

When implemented effectively, a middle school concept increasingly leads to substantial positive outcomes in virtually every area of concern to educators and parents including academic achievement. Improvement can also be noted in a range of aspects of students' deportment, attendence, tardiness, referals to office for discipline, theft, vandalism, etc. Those things change in a concept like this. Middle school programs involve relationships between students of different racial and ethnic groups, parents and teachers, teachers and students, teachers with other teachers, especially between elementary, high school, and those at the middle level.

I thought that Paul George and Kathy Shewy put that very effectively. And when they ended this particular discussion of the middle school concept they said:

We believe that the available evidence suggests that practitioners can, with confidence continue to expect the implementation of middle schools to result in improved academic achievement, more positive personal development, and enhanced group citizenship for the students involved. But it isn't guaranteed and it won't be easy.

And I think that characterizes our conversation today. And I guess I wanted to end on that note. And just so that no one would take the one comment that was made totally...Yes, I was a band director, but I have a four point average from Miami University in educational administration, PhD. I also have a four point average in a specialists program from Bowling Green State University and a 3.98 accumulative average from Wright State University—our neighboring institution—in educational administration. As a student, I was told I couldn't achieve because I was in a lower track. Now you understand why I believe what I believe.

KATHY SHEWY, with 25 years of teaching and team leader experience at the middle level, is currently a curriculum resource teacher at Kanapaha Middle School, Gainesville, FL. She is also an adjunct instructor at the University of Florida. As a consultant for the National Resource Center for Middle Level Education in Tampa, she was instrumental in the Department of Defense Schools' conversion to middle schools. Kathy also co-authored New Evidence for Middle School with Dr. Paul George. Published by NMSA, it is currently one of their hottest sellers. NEW Evidence for the Middle School George, Paul S. and Shewey, Kathy; Topics: Middle School reform