Our staff at Fort Morgan Middle School are committed to our students and our diverse community. Fort Morgan Middle School is located in Fort Morgan, Colorado and serves approximately 780 students in grades 6-8. We have approximately 63% of of the students who qualify as Free and Reduced and lower economic status, although. This percentage is believed to be low, and much more likely closer to 80%, as our community has not been diligent about filling out qualification applications. In 2023-2024, approximately 575 of the student population was labeled minority with 63.4% being Hispanic and 29.5% white, 4.3% black, 0.8% Asian and 1.5% multiple race / other. Currently, approximately 14% of our population is classified as English Language Development (NEP and LEP), of which 2.1% is classified as migrant. We have a highly mobile population with a strong Somali, East Africa, and Guatemalan movement. Our school district is one of 5 school districts in the state of Colorado that serves a student population that has minority, ELL, and Migrant enrollment of this magnitude. Fort Morgan Middle School provides Special Education Services to 13.2% of our student population across all learning spectrums - with 11.2% being classified with a Specific Learning Disability. We have worked hard to maintain the true middle school philosophy of working in teams (Math, Science, Literacy, Language Arts, and Social Studies), providing a wide range of elective offerings such as: PE/Health, STEM, and Arts - allowing for mentoring times with all students, and working hard to meet the social and emotional needs of our students. In the area of Special Education, we have fully implemented the ''inclusion'' model, and we believe our students are receiving stronger instruction, system wide. Our ELD students receive targeted English Language Arts (ELA) instruction daily while following the inclusive model with support in math, science, and social studies. Fort Morgan Middle School is in its third year with a Dual Immersion pathway for students. These students receive 2 hours a day of curriculum in Spanish. We continue to strive to provide the highest quality of education for our students through current curriculum adoption in all subject areas that are being implemented and taught with fidelity across grade levels. Our school is built around a high level of collaboration. Through the Middle School philosophy, our content teachers have daily common plan times that allows for collaboration, content curriculum map discussions, lesson planning, and cross curriculum unit planning. Additionally, as a school, we have both grade level and content Professional Learning Communities (PLC's) on a weekly basis for approximately 30 minutes each. These PLC's are facilitated by our Instructional Coaches. Grade level PLC's focus on student learning and best instructional practices, while content PLC's focus on the curriculum, lesson planning, progress monitoring, and common assessment - with a high level of discussion around the data and areas of needed improvement. Led by our counselors, each of our teams meet weekly to focus on Multi-tiered Systems of Support (MTSS), and interventions specific to students and their needs as it relates to both academic and social/emotional needs. Students identified in our MTSS process are reviewed every 3 weeks to evaluate their success or needed improvement. FMMS follows the PBIS and Capturing Kids Heart model for student behavior. We strive to educate our students on acceptable behavior throughout the school by recognizing them through positive rewards that focus on specifically targeted areas of improvement such as: tardies, discipline referrals, GPA, etc. Over the past couple of years we have also implemented the PBIS and Capturing Kids Hearts model with our staff - with the same focus of improving processes and procedures internally. All staff within the school has been trained and is implementing Capturing Kids Hearts with fidelity across the school in an effort to focus on relationships and social contracts in an effort to address negative behaviors and apathy across the building. This school year, we have focused on using the 2023-2024 CMAS data and engaged in discussion related to our building goals/focuses. Staff in their grade level PLC's have analyzed the data and identified notable trends. From there, staff developed goals for Math, ELA, and Science. Additionally, our staff spent time identifying strategies to reach our school level growth goals as well as potential barriers they may face. This work is difficult. It is reflective of our instruction and initiatives at Fort Morgan Middle School. It also becomes the basis for change in our instruction, curriculum, and school initiatives to meet student needs. Ultimately from the this work and the development of the UIP, we can identify areas to address within our school that will show progress in increasing student growth and achievement. |