Middle schools often overlooked

Good point here.

Most of the attention and money in our town has been spent on the high school. It's a lovely facility which is now at capacity. Meanwhile the middle school is in need of updates, possibly replacement in the future.

Besides just the building, I think the focus on high school performance and curriculum has overshadowed our lower grades. As the story points out, middle school is a critical time of transition which often can be overlooked.

Ultimately the grammar schools get shorted in the budget the most, and I think suffer the most. The buildings are old and classrooms are crowded (with trailers employed again).

To succeed and improve, we need (and I sound like a broken record) a systemic curriculum coordination among all grades with proper metrics in place to determine the effectiveness of our programs among all grades. This should be a priority for our district.