The state-mandated overhaul

of middle schools has triggered Fayette County to appoint a commission

to assess how proposed changes will affect local students.

Stuart Bennett, Fayette County's

assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction, reviewed the

complex changes facing middle schools at a community roundtable last week.

"The most significant

progress to date is the school system's decision "not to cut physical

education, to allow band, and provide a minimum of one health and one

PE," Bennett said.

"We need to keep academics

strong and meet the needs of students," he added, noting the special

social, psychological and emotional needs of middle school-age youth.

"Their needs really are different," Bennett said, comparing

them to their elementary and high school counterparts.

While educators are fighting

to keep the middle school model of sixth, seventh and eighth grade, which

was adopted in Georgia during the 1989-90 school year, the governor's

A Plus Reform Plan changes the way the state funds middle schools.

"The middle school rule

is, if you get middle school funding, you do this," Bennett explained.

The first change to be put

in place next year (2201-2002) is the reduction in teacher planning time

from the current 110 minutes to 85 minutes. The following year, planning

schedules may be reduced to 55 minutes. "With 55 minutes of planning

time, you have a high school day set up," Bennett said.

Fayette County's middle schools

rank in the state's top 5 percent. The need to focus more on academics

and instructional time is not as imperative here as it is in other counties,

which may have high percentages of eighth graders failing in their first

year of high school, Bennett said. One way the state recommendations hope

to "beef up" academics, according to Bennett, is to add more

teachers to middle school "teams" and push for teacher content

certification.

Each middle school student

is part of a team that includes three to four teachers who meet and now

spend about three hours a week on common planning time, going over the

needs of the students, Bennett said.

"That's where the rub

comes," he added, noting the four and a half to five hours of state-prescribed

academic time. Middle school teams now control their own time, using an

interdisciplinary approach to work with the total needs of the students,

Bennett said.

"It works if you allow

it to work... if you don't mess with the formula," he said.

Asked what the atmosphere was

like at the state meetings dealing with these proposed changes, Bennett

responded, "One word confusion. All we've kicked off in this state

is confusion."

What are the main objectives?

"The objectives, we think,

are to make sure the academics are being covered, and to have exploratories

that are QCC- [Quality Core Curriculum] driven, not fluff, and to prepare

students for high school," Bennett said.

"We are going to have

strong middle schools," he added, "and not reinvent the wheel

to do it."

The next roundtable session,

date to be announced, will discuss school councils and how they will be

implemented.