Under Pressure.

I have to admit that when I first walked into the school, I was a bit intimated. The school has mt AYP for the past two years in a row and it seemed like this school was no joke. And, I was pretty much right--this is great school. The students are awesome, the teachers seem really down to earth, and the administration is really nice. On my first day at NMS, I was able to attend a team meeting. My co-op, and the rest of the teachers, are broken up into teams--we're on the Green team--and every so often they have meeting with the principal and vice principal of the school. I thought it was interesting because I was able to see how the school operates behind the scenes. When I first walked into the meeting, the principal asked me what I thought of the school, so far. When I walked it, my first impression was that this was a serious school, but also welcoming to people that were coming in. After talking for a little, the principal said, "Well, welcome to the Yale of Middle Schools." And, i can see why he said that. The teachers take their jobs very seriously and students seem know when and where they can act, and also that they need to get their work done.

It seems perfect. Well, i realized that a school that seems perfect has a lot of standards that they have to live up to. The first few days that I was there, the students were doing benchmark testing--pre-PSSA prep. My teacher was almost manic as a students were handing in their scores. She kept telling me that usually the students do very well on their tests, but some of them don't take it as seriously. She even has to lecture them to make sure that they do there best, or they would end up in remediation (where the teachers take the students that don't do as well, and work with them on improving their scores). She said that she was sad that she had to be so hard on them, but I realized that how her students do on these tests, is a reflection on her as a teacher. Which, I thought, was a little scary. However, it seems that most of the students did really well on the test. Out of three periods that I saw, only 3 or 4 students received basic or below basic scores. It'll be interesting to see what else happens as I am watching the students.