Morey Middle School Tour - April 24, 2007

My impressions of Morey http://morey.dpsk12.org/

Facility/Safety
There are several entrances to the school with only the one closest to the office unlocked. It is off of the parking lot which was full, parking near the school is difficult, the school is directly east of St John’s Episcopal Church. The building is clean if not a bit stark inside. There isn’t a lot of color inside the school, no posters advertising this activity or that activity but the halls are neat and the building looks well maintained. They have two gyms and a swimming pool. There is a full industrial ed shop that caught Henry’s attention. The library was nice, large, inviting, and well stocked. There was a full auditorium, decent looking cafeteria and fairly nice grounds (it was raining cats and dogs so I didn’t get a good look) Classrooms seemed open and spacious with decent equipment. There were at least two computer labs filled with Apple equipment.

School make up
750 kids – One third HGT, One third High Strides, and one third Traditional students – classes are run on a “block schedule” so instead of changing classes every 45 minutes kids change classes every 90 minutes. 6th graders have the same teacher for language arts and social studies and then another teacher that covers math and science. Gym is mandatory for 6th graders but becomes an elective after that. There is a “wheel” class that includes one quarter art, one quarter music, and two other quarters that I missed. HGT students stay with HGT for the core curriculum (science, math, language arts, social studies) and mix with the rest of the school for wheel classes, gym, and lunch. Currently, HGT kids stay with the same kids for all core curriculum classes even though the teacher changes. As the whole school goes to block scheduling the kids might mix a bit more within the core curriculum. They have Spanish and French electives along with some others but I didn’t get a clear picture of how electives work. There is a special ed teacher assigned to the HGT program for twice exceptional students and there are additional special ed teachers assigned to each grade. Most of the kids who attend Morey’s HGT program go on to East High school to attend the honors programs or they go on to the IB program at GW.

Afterschool activities
Morey has organized sports programs in football, baseball, soccer, basketball, and volleyball. They have a foreign language, drama, yearbook, stepping, Destination Imagination, film, swim, and casual sports clubs after school. I think there are more afterschool groups but that was what I caught. There is the opportunity to be at school afterschool every day until 5pm or later.

General impression
Walking into the school was a tad intimidating because this is definitely not elementary school. No cute kindergartens to smile at. The students fill the halls with their energy. The office folks were welcoming and every teacher we met was very friendly and talkative. I have to say that I was impressed by the HGT classrooms and I think Henry was also. They use the DPS curriculum but take it a step further incorporating special projects and themes that complement the basic material. We listened in on a social studies classroom that was having a discussion about climbing Mt Everest and a science classroom that was preparing for a competition on supplying clean water to a community. There were quite a few male teachers and every classroom we looked in was under control and working. The students seemed pretty engaged, dress and behavior seemed to be pretty moderate while you could still tell they were middle schoolers.