Village Middle School is an online/hybrid public school in Academy District 20. Village Middle School rebranded from Journey K8 in July 2023, which included a name change, change in grade levels served, as well as significant programming and scheduling changes. For the 23-24 school year, 5th grade is offered, but beginning August 24-25, only grades 6-8 will be offered. School Design: The use of online curriculum allows for personalization for students. The school believes in the importance of wo…
rking with peers and staff in-person regularly, therefore access to staff for 6th-8th graders occurs onsite. There are no regularly scheduled zoom/online meetings with content teachers. Students have choice in what content they work on during the day/week. Beginning in 23-24, middle school students are now able to come in to the school 4 days per week. Previously, it was 2 days onsite and 2 days remote. Elective offerings were expanded from 22-23 to 23-24 with students shifting from 1 hour per week to 6 hours. Additionally, VMS implemented a Mentor Program in the 23-24 school year. Operations are anchored in three beliefs: relationships matter, learning is deepest when it is student-led, and education needs to change to match the changing world. In addition to traditional goals, Village Middle School strives to ensure students develop communication skills, ownership of their choices/decision making, strong relationships, and executive functioning skills. Staffing: There is currently a 0.2 Resource Teacher, a half-time TAG teacher, full time counselor (half funding through ESSER), a full time interventionists, an electives teacher, and one ELA, SS, Sci. and Math teacher to serve grades 6th-8th. Many teachers are ?in-field? in several content areas. There is one fifth grade teacher. Administration support was reduced by the district in 23-24 to no longer include an Assistant Principal. There is a full time Principal. Pertinent History: Prior to 20-21 school year, the school had about 130-150 students in grades K-8 combined. During the 2020-21 School Year, Academy District 20 offered a Return-to-Learn Plan that any parent who wished their student K-8 to remain fully online due to COVID could enroll at Journey K8. As a result, enrollment at Journey K8 went from 149 to over 2600 students. Students could also return at each quarter to their primary school which resulted in collapsed classes and students possibly transferring to multiple teachers throughout the year. In addition, over 50 teachers were assigned as teachers for Journey K8 over the year. Of those 50, many were guest teachers. During the 2021-22 school year, Academy District 20 continued to offer 1-year COVID enrollments at Journey K-8 families in the district. Enrollment was over 300. During the 2022-23 school year, enrollment returned to slightly higher than pre-pandemic levels at 160 students. One third of those students were in elementary and two-thirds were in middle school. As a result of the past three years combined with high CMAS parent refusal rates, we believe that it is not possible to make clear conclusions about the data trends or to draw sound conclusions for the 3-year timeline of data (2019-2023). The 22-23 school year was the first year that operations, staffing, and enrollment returned to pre-pandemic conditions. School Administration worked together with input from staff and the School Accountability Committee to write this UIP.
Accredited with Distinction - This is assigned to the highest performing districts. These districts are meeting or exceeding expectations on the majority of performance tasks.
Accredited - Districts with an overall rating of Accredited are meeting expectations on the majority of performance metrics.
Accredited with Improvement Plan - These districts are identified as lower performing. They may be meeting expectations on some performance metrics, but they are not meeting or are only approaching expectations on many.
Accredited with Priority Improvement Plan - These districts are identified as low performing. They are not meeting or are only approaching expectations on most performance metrics. The state will provide support and oversight to these districts until they improve.
Accredited with Turnaround Plan - These districts are identified as among the lowest performing districts in the state. They are not meeting or are only approaching expectations on most performance metrics. The state will provide support and oversight to these districts until they improve.
Accredited with Insufficient State Data - These districts are assigned this accreditation rating when the state does not have enough data to report publicly. To better understand why a district received an Insufficient State Data rating, all publicly reportable data are reflected in the performance framework report. More information about these ratings is available here.
School Ratings
Performance Plan - Schools with a Performance Plan are meeting expectations on the majority of performance metrics.
Improvement Plan - These schools are identified as lower performing. They may be meeting expectations on some performance metrics, but they are not meeting or are only approaching expectations on many.
Priority Improvement Plan - These schools are identified as low performing. They are not meeting or are only approaching expectations on most performance metrics. The state will provide support and oversight to these schools until they improve.
Turnaround Plan - These schools are identified as among the lowest performing schools in the state. They are not meeting or are only approaching expectations on most performance metrics. The state will provide support and oversight to these schools until they improve.
Insufficient State Data - These schools are assigned this plan type when the state does not have enough data to report publicly. To better understand why a school received an Insufficient State Data rating, all publicly reportable data are reflected in the performance framework report. More information about these ratings is available here.