our kid is doing great there. she loves it. the early lunch is no problem and the teachers are great. We were nervous at the beginning but after we saw how on top of thigns they are we quickly relaxed. edline is awesome and we are so glad she is going there.

We have one child there and another who is now in HS and we found Westland to be quite good -- not great, but MS is rarely great just kind of the nature of middle schools. In general, the school is run very well (much much better than the ES we came from which was much smaller) and my sense is that they try to get kids ready for HS more than anything else, which makes sense to me. Administrators are responsive and reasonable, as is true with many of the teachers. One of the unusual things and it turns out to be a good thing is that it is the only MS that feeds into BCC, which makes for a big MS but also makes the HS transition quite easy. The HS also has crazy lunch hours and the kids adapt. The only real issue we have had with Westland is there are a lot of weak teachers and what seems like pretty high tolerance for bad teaching (we experienced the same at the ES) and I think in this day and age there really should not be such a tolerance for disengaged workbook teachers who lose assignments etc. There are also some amazing teachers and I think they work to spread out the joys and the pains so, on the whole, it works quite well.

The overcrowding is hardly mind boggling. They have more students than they were initially built to accommodate. As a result they have 4 lunch periods, instead of 3, there are always gym classes held outdoors (although in the winter kids "volunteer" for the polar bear class, so a child is very uncomfortable in the cold wouldn't be chosen), and there are kids in portable classrooms. None of these are significant hardships. Teachers work hard to find solutions, such as allowing snacks in class.

My kid had a good experience there. Each subject handles advanced kids differently. I should note that plenty of "advanced" kids have behavior problems, and that plenty of kids who benefit from on level curriculum don't.

Math: kids are grouped by level, so an advanced 6th grader might be with an on level 7th grader. There are a few math classes that are specifically for kids at or below level like Double Period Algebra, and Geometry, which is 2 years ahead for 8th graders, won't have any struggling students.

Foreign Language: Kids can start in either 6th if they're advanced in reading, or 7th if they're on track. Kids starting in 7th can choose to go "half speed" or "full high school speed". So an 8th grader might be taking 1b (if they started in 7th and went half speed) or 2 (if they started in 7th and went full speed) or 3 (if they started in 6th).

Science, English, World Studies: Are cluster grouped. By that they mean that there are some classes where all the students are "on level", and some where all the kids are "gifted" (a very loose definition of the word), and some that are split about 1/2 and 1/2 with kids in the 2 groups covering the same content, but held to different expectations through different tests and different rubrics for assignments.

Arts, PE: heterogeneous groupings.

My son, now a 9th grader at BCC, had a great experience at Westland.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My son likes it and is doing very well. The advanced kids are grouped together so there is less behavior problems in those classes. So far, so good.

Thanks....do they group for ALL subjects, or just for English, Foreign Language and Math?
Ie, are Social Studies and Science not tracked?

Um, I think this is completely false. They designate certain courses as "advanced" for the entire school, but there is no ability grouping by class. The only wy you might see that is in certain math classes (i.e., kids taking Geometry in middle school might are, of necessity, going to be advanced) and kids in the Spanish immersion classes have a higher level of Spanish. Other than that, no grouping.

We think it's a great school and have not observed that the overcrowing is worse than any other MPCS classroom that our kids have been in. I think that aspect, while a pain for the administrators I'm sure, doesn't have a huge effect on the kids.

The fact that some kids due to overcrowding have to have lunch at 10 am is a huge effect.

I can't speak to Westland but my DC is at a nearby school that is similarly overcapacity and it's fine. Not sure how, but it works out. Ours doesn't have portables yet but probably will next year. The class sizes are large but that's not a function of the overcapacity, that's budget. They still can't put more than X kids in a classroom (X varies by subject).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My son likes it and is doing very well. The advanced kids are grouped together so there is less behavior problems in those classes. So far, so good.

Thanks....do they group for ALL subjects, or just for English, Foreign Language and Math?
Ie, are Social Studies and Science not tracked?

Um, I think this is completely false. They designate certain courses as "advanced" for the entire school, but there is no ability grouping by class. The only wy you might see that is in certain math classes (i.e., kids taking Geometry in middle school might are, of necessity, going to be advanced) and kids in the Spanish immersion classes have a higher level of Spanish. Other than that, no grouping.

We think it's a great school and have not observed that the overcrowing is worse than any other MPCS classroom that our kids have been in. I think that aspect, while a pain for the administrators I'm sure, doesn't have a huge effect on the kids.

Anonymous wrote:My son likes it and is doing very well. The advanced kids are grouped together so there is less behavior problems in those classes. So far, so good.

Thanks....do they group for ALL subjects, or just for English, Foreign Language and Math?
Ie, are Social Studies and Science not tracked?

My son likes it and is doing very well. The advanced kids are grouped together so there is less behavior problems in those classes. So far, so good.

I searched the archive for info but couldn't find much recent. The overcrowding of the school is mind boggling. How are they coping? It's years till the new middle school comes along.