LaChar Tevis was on the verge of moving to a new county, a new home and since she was starting sixth grade, a new grown-up academic setting known as middle school.
She was looking forward to getting her own locker and to changing classes, but her older sister and guardian, Victoria Gallespie, was nervous about LaChar having to deal with so much change at once. So when Gallespie discovered Lindley Sixth Grade Academy in Cobb County, it influenced her decision about where to buy a home.
“Intermingling a sixth-grader with eighth-graders is a bit scary,” she said. “I discussed with her; that this was a sixth-grade academy and that she would not be intertwined with seventh- and eighth-graders, and that decreased her anxiety tremendously.”
Across Georgia, sixth-grade academies are still a rarity. State officials say there are three schools that serve only that grade level, one in Cobb, one in Marietta and one in Tifton. Some started as a way to deal with overcrowding. But over the years these academies have evolved into a means of easing the transition into middle school, and providing more individual attention to the maturing age group they serve.
Splitting up a school can be more costly -- it means hiring another principal in addition to support staff such as office workers and janitors. Some experts also question the benefits it has on child development.
John Lounsbury, dean emeritus at Georgia College and State University's college of education, is considered one of the pioneers of the middle school concept. He believes students can benefit from mixing with other ages. Lounsbury also said good middle school programs allow different grades to mix in exploratory classes or at lunch.
"I like to think good middle schools know how to use the diversity academically, socially and emotionally in positive ways," he said. "By March or April, you've got kids who are really socially and emotionally, and in some cases mentally beyond the sixth grade. I don't think it is the best way to guide the growth and development of young adolescents who are so different and who are very much in transition."
But officials in Marietta say the academy is a selling point for parents who don’t like the idea of wide-eyed 11- and 12-year-olds running into mature eighth-graders who can range in age from 13 to 15.
The Marietta Sixth Grade Academy opened as an annex across the street from the overcrowded middle school in 1993. But by the time the district moved the middle school to a larger facility in 2002, they realized the model was working and decided to officially make the school its own entity.
A major focus at the school is helping students establish good study habits and organization skills to prepare for a larger course load. Students are taught how to arrange their backpack and they take surveys to help understand how they learn best, whether visually, audibly or through hands-on activities.
Test scores have increased over the last couple of years and the school continues to meet annual state academic requirements, said Principal Dayton Hibbs.
"I believe our test scores are a validation that this process helps, and it helps move middle grade education forward," he said. "If you had a typical school of sixth, seventh and eighth grade, your focus is on trying to improve test scores at all the grade levels while at the same time trying to teach kids how to transition."
Lindley Sixth Grade Academy was started three years ago as an off-shoot of Lindley Middle, a school with 1,500 to 1,600 students that was struggling to meet state testing standards, said academy Principal Landon Brown.
“We needed to do something different,” said Brown, who at the time was working as an assistant principal at the middle school. “[The board] thought it would create a smaller learning environment for the kids, and provide the administration more flexibility to do some different things, and it really has.”
With the support of parents, the academy introduced uniforms and began to offer single-gender classes. Test scores increased dramatically during the first year – reading scores from 80 percent on target to 89, and math scores from 54 to 73 percent.
The school, which has an enrollment of 486, met testing goals for the first year in 2008-09 and was able to sustain the increases in reading in 2009-10. However, math scores dipped 3 percentage points and the school fell short of state testing goals.
Still, parents are enthusiastic about the model, the school's teachers and leadership.
"The teachers are trying to give them a chance to be independent thinkers and make good choices without the distractions of all the older kids," said Nicole Kempson, whose son Justin Farmer attended the academy last year. "All of the changes they're going to have to go through when they go to middle school, they get here and its not as much pressure because everyone is the same. Everyone's in sixth grade."
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