Perspective

Sue Swaim

Celebrate What's Right About Your School
During October 2004, National Middle School Association proudly celebrates the 8th annual Month of the Young Adolescent in collaboration with 40 national education, health, and youthoriented organizations and our 57 NMSA affiliates. Schools, communities, and organizations across the country and around the world are joining us in the celebration of young adolescents. You can visit our Web site at www.nmsa.org to view a wide variety of ideas and tools to help your school and community become involved as well.

Although Month of the Young Adolescent is celebrated in October, it takes a consistent year-round commitment to truly make a difference in the lives of our middle level students. That's why your ongoing involvement and commitment to advocating for and implementing high-performing middle level schools that focus on academic excellence through developmentally appropriate practices for every student is so important!

One easy way to start your advocacy work is by sharing the many successes of your school with your colleagues, with parents, with school board members, and with community members. Unfortunately, sometimes even faculty and staff members don't know all the great things that are happening at their own school so they miss important opportunities to share success stories in their informal conversations in supermarket check-out lines, at school sporting events, or in the shopping mall. So, using a faculty meeting to highlight "What's Right About Our School" can help everyone become a better advocate for young adolescents and their schools.

There are several ways you can develop a list of the many successes at your school. During a faculty meeting brainstorm the 30 best things about your school. If you need to be a little more focused in your brainstorming process, consider breaking into three smaller groups to focus on the following areas:

1. Student successes, such as academic growth and improvement, programs that enhance student achievement, student honors or awards, and alumni success stories.
2. Staff activities and honors, such as district or school teachers of the year, ongoing professional development activities, published articles written by faculty members, unsolicited compliments from a parent, and curriculum development committee members.
3. Student contributions, such as community service projects, student tutors or study buddy programs, and student performances for senior citizen or community service groups.

We all know how easy it is to focus on what's going wrong. This activity provides the chance to celebrate what's going right and can help build school pride.

Use your brainstormed ideas to develop a master list for all your faculty and staff members.

• Include three or four of the successes in your school's monthly newsletter, lunch menu sheet, or on your school's Web site, updating this section at least monthly.
• Share the list with your superintendent, school board members, and other local and state policymakers.
• Incorporate the information into a short speech that can be used at parent groups, civic club meetings, or in introductions of student performance groups at community events.
• List all the school's major successes on a card that can be carried in a purse or coat pocket. Give the card to every faculty and staff member and urge each to use it whenever a community member asks, "So, is there anything worthwhile happening at your school?"
• Share the list with your students and encourage them to help you build the list and keep it updated.
• Have a Month of the Young Adolescent celebration activity and highlight the great things happening at your school.

Make a Difference
Clearly we have serious issues to address if we are to achieve our common goal of ensuring that every young adolescent receives a quality education that develops his or her unique skills and talents to the fullest. However, as we work together to focus on these high priority issues, let's not lose sight of the successes we're achieving along the way.

Use Month of the Young Adolescent to help your school focus on both the successes and the challenges of implementing a high-performing middle school. Join us as we advocate for young adolescents and the educational opportunities they deserve. Together, we can make a difference!

Sue Swaim is executive director of National Middle School Association.