KDS Middle School
KDS DAR Middle School serves grades 5-8. The average enrollment at the school is 375, with a school staff of 28 including administration, certified personnel and support personnel. The staff has great pride in knowing the extent of the many different programs that are in place to draw upon the various needs and learning abilities of the students within the total school program. The programs are designed to address the various levels of learning abilities and learning styles of the different age groups within the student body.
The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 required that all students make progress toward the achievement of grade level literacy and mathematics proficiency. In order to assist struggling students within their academics, the faculty and staff at KDS DAR Middle School adopted the mantra “Whatever It Takes”. Staff members from the school from are involved in professional development opportunities to strengthen their knowledge and capabilities in areas of instruction and subject matter that are conducive to desired changes in the school program. Several staff members have made site visits to neighboring schools with an emphasis on school improvement based programs with the Professional Learning Community Model. A key point of this model is to not allow students to fail. Rather than permitting students to accept failure, the school implemented a morning school program entitled Six O’Clock School (SOS). It is significant to the school improvement programs for students to read on grade level; this is crucial to attaining the goal of Adequate Yearly Progress. Therefore strategic reading lessons are being implemented across all curricula as opposed to only in reading class. The teachers have embraced this new school wide focus and are eagerly participating in a variety of professional development opportunities in an effort to gain more knowledge about adolescent literacy.
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| These KDS Middle School students
celebrated Literacy Week with a visit to Head Start where they read to the preschoolers. |
In addition to the academic program, the staff provide a variety of extra-curricular activities for the students. The activities include football, volleyball, basketball, cheerleading, Student Government Association, Junior American Citizens club, Scholars Bowl team, Math team, and National Honor Society. The SGA highlights this group of extra-curricular programs. The officers and representatives worked very hard to achieve their goals. The SGA’s main objective is to promote school pride and excellence. This was accomplished through various activities such as honoring the top students at the end of each grading period, escorting visitors during Dedication Day activities, sponsoring Homecoming activities, raising $1000.00 for diabetes research, raising $400.00 for the tornado damaged Enterprise High School, and gifts for Diabetes research.
Visit KDS DAR Middle's Marshall County site:
http://www.marshallk12.org/DARMiddle/