About DCMS

ABOUT DODGE CITY MIDDLE SCHOOL

Dodge City Middle School is a building that houses grades 6 – 8 students. The Middle School offers a transitional environment geared toward preparing kids for high school and beyond while introducing students to a variety of extracurricular choices. Our teachers embrace cutting edge instructional practices and work hard to ready students for the competitive world of the future.

Dodge City Middle School is a place filled with dedicated teachers, support staff and caring administration focused on meeting the needs of all learners. DCMS supports fifty-nine teachers, two part time academic coaches, one part time technology coach, one librarian, two counselors, and three administrators serving 729 students in sixty-one classrooms.

The school day begins with a twenty-three minute advisory period. Each of our 6-8 grade levels includes two interdisciplinary teams with sixty-four minute block for math and ELA classes. Our daily schedule also includes forty-two minutes for science, social studies, and a computer application classes that alternates every other day with a physical education. Each student receives two forty-two minute periods a day of exploratory classes rotating every nine weeks.

New Facilities

The recent passing of a school bond issues gives us aspiration to provide an even greater opportunity to improve education and a brighter future for our students. The results of this bond issues provides our community and school to witness the future construction of a new sixth grade wing, maker spaces at all three grade levels, storm shelters to ensure the safety of our students, a new gymnasium to support a growing sports program and the extension of our commons area to provide an expanding population with improved food service area.

Student Population

There has been gradual but continuous shift in the demographics of Dodge City Middle School in recent years. Our largest ethnic subgroup is Hispanic students at 84%, our white student population is 12% with the remaining population, 4% being our African American and students of other nationalities. The demographic shift has been a driving force in differentiating our instructional practices and the basis for our intervention programs. The number of at-risk students in Dodge City Middle School is one of the highest in Kansas with 80% of our students on free or reduced price lunches. As our student population changes so does our curriculum planning, professional development and instructional practices. We believe that our school reflects the needs of the students who attend.

MIDDLE LEVEL PHILOSOPHY

Dodge City Middle School subscribes to a philosophy that centers on the unique needs of middle level students. Our school believes that middle level eduation can best be met in a school setting that provides a student-centered program. To this goal of student centered believes we recognizes that the students of this age are undergoing greater physiological, psychological, and social re-orientation than at any other period in their lives. Thus, the overall purpose of Dodge City Middle School is to meet the educational, developmental, and social needs that emerge in this transitional period.

Our middle school program provides a supportive and flexible environment so students will have opportunities to develop skills and explore a variety of learning experiences while making the transition from elementary to high school. In keeping with this philosophy, Dodge City Middle school will establish and provide:

A core curriculum of reading, language arts, math, science, and social studies.
Exploratory programs and activities in all areas of the curriculum to help students discover and extend their interests and abilities.
An extensive advisory and counseling program.
A supportive environment for the physical and social development of every student.
A positive climate that fosters self-esteem, self-discipline, and student responsibility.
Knowledgeable educators who are committed to the middle school design.
An ongoing program of training and professional skills that are based on the characteristics and needs of the adolescent.
Close contact and communication between parents and school.
A challenging curriculum and pace of learning to meet individual levels and understanding.
Opportunities for intervention and acceleration when needs are identified.

Middle Level Teams

Dodge City Middle School is based upon a team approach where teams of teachers and students work together to achieve academic and personal goals. Teachers share responsibility for the same students and solve problems together, often before they reach the crisis stage. This community of learning nurtures bonds between teacher and student that are the building blocks of the education of the young adolescent. Teaming provides an environment conducive to learning by reducing the stress of anonymity and isolation of students. Common planning by teachers of different subjects enables students to sense consistent expectations for them and to strive to meet clearly understood standards of achievement.

Teaming creates the kind of learning environment that encourages students to grapple with ideas that may span several disciplines and to create solutions to problems that reflect understanding, not memorization. Students are placed on grade level academic teams. The team concept benefits students by providing support in a transition between elementary school and high school. Teachers on a team have a common planning period, which they use daily to ensure that student successes are recognized, student concerns are addressed, and interdisciplinary planning is implemented. Teams design interdisciplinary activities that make connections between content areas and increase the relevance of the curriculum. Grade level teams consist of four academic teachers, guidance counselor, principal, special education, and an
interventionist.

Advisory

The student advocacy period is designed to help students with academics, to develop a sense of community and a feeling of security among the students, and to work on individual needs with interesting activities. At DCMS we believe that every student should be well known by at least one adult. students should be able to rely on that adult to help them learn from their experiences, comprehend physical changes and changing relationships; act on their behalf to marshal every school and community resource they need to succeed, and help them fashion a promising vision of the future. Small group advisories enable teachers and other staff members to actively monitor the academic and social development of students.

The goals of the advisory program are to help students with their academic and social development, to provide a sense of community and security among the students, and to connect each student with an adult advisory in the school community. Advisory is the first period of the day. This will allow time for advisory teachers to ensure that students are well prepared for the day by checking their three ring subject binder for all completed homework assignments and daily agenda. With this new practice in place, every student will be required to take their three ring zipper binder to every class. The three ring zipper binder will contain three whole punch subject folders for each class, a pencil pocket holder, paper, and the student agenda. Student agendas will be checked by the advisory teacher once every day except for those days that an advisory class is not held.

Student Leadership Opportunities

Student council - We have an active Student Council organization. Not only are they completely involved in student policy making, community service and school activities but also in leadership training during their daily Homebase advisory time.
National Junior Honor Society - 2011 was the first year for DCMS to be involved with Honor Society. We currently have 245 students qualifying with a GPA of 3.5 or higher.
Heritage Panel - Students of all cultural backgrounds are invited to join this performance based group. These young people meet after school to work on musical and dance numbers that are performed for the student body and the community.
Latino Leadership Day is an event that Dodge City Middle School participates in on a yearly basis. Latino Leadership is an opportunity for our students that promotes empowerment of students through goal setting and is further supported by making a conscience effort to seek positive influences in life. This year’s event introduced 8th grade students to the power of poetry, the need to develop goals, and the opportunities that the world offers through education and intrinsic motivation.
Scholars Bowl - For a number of years students from both grade levels have competed in interscholastic competition with surrounding schools to test their academic prowess.
Gear Up - In collaboration with high school personnel, a group of our students began this year to work with the GEAR UP program after school for college/career awareness.
Duke Talent Identification Program - 7th grade students may experience the ACT or SAT if their most recent math and reading state assessments were above 95%. A high enough score on either test qualifies them to participate in a variety of summer or weekend academic camps at Kansas University.

Tomorrows Essentials; Digital Learning

Dodge City Middle School believes that effective digital media combined with powerful teaching, rich content, and engaged students will take learning to a much higher level and provide all students with experiences that allow them to graduate prepared for college and a career. Students need learning opportunities that are more hands on, experiential, project based and aligned with student interest. These types of learning opportunities offer students the chance to produce content, analyze information, and build deeper knowledge of complex topics.

Digital Learning from digitalsandbox on Vimeo.