If Yuma Middle School is to be an exemplary school the staff, parents, students, district, and community must embrace collaboration to maximize student achievement. Through this partnership and a clear sense of goals, the result will be a positive learning environment in which each student will gain the essential skills to become a vital, productive citizen in the global community.

Values

Students

Yuma Middle School expects students to respect others and display positive and respectful attitudes toward academic achievement and citizenship.

In such a school students

Accept responsibility for their learning, decisions, and actions
Develop skills to become a self directed learner
Set goals in order to achieve a minimum of one year’s growth and close the learning gap
Be considerate of others: teachers, staff, fellow students, visitors, etc
Engage in and give their best effort to academics and extra-curricular activities in order to become well-rounded individuals in the school and community

Staff

Yuma Middle School believes in empowering staff to work collaboratively in a positive manner to promote an atmosphere of collegiality, achievement, citizenship, and trust at all levels of the learning community.

In such a school staff

Have high expectations for all students and self
Places student learning, growth, and success above all else
Are positive role models
Communicate effectively with students, parents, community, and district
Provide a safe environment of respect, trust, and open communication throughout the learning community
Share ideas; collaborate in individual teams as well as in school wide teams to ensure learning for students and staff
Share in decision making
Promote the schools vision and values through continuous efforts to increase achievement
Have a commitment to continuous improvement
Establish positive relationships with parents and communicate openly with parents whenthere are problems
Get to know the students
Involve parents in the education of the students
Celebrate learning
Empower students to handle life situations

Academics

Yuma Middle School sets standards-based goals for individual students and monitors those goals through consistent assessments in accordance with best practice.

In such a school

Staff stimulates active engagement on the part of the students through a rigorous curriculum and high expectations
Staff Recognize and provide for individual interest and differences
Curriculum and instruction are clearly stated for each grade level and content area.
Student progress is closely monitored, and intervention is provided for students who need additional assistance
Teachers understand and can articulate in advance of teaching the achievement essentials students are to hit
Students are informed regularly about those essentials in terms they can understand, in part through the study of the criteria by which their work will be evaluated and samples of high quality work.
Students can describe what essentials they are to hit and what comes next in their learning
Classroom teachers can transform those essentials into dependable assessments that yield accurate information
Classroom assessment information is used both by teacher and student to revise and guide teaching and learning
Feedback given to students is descriptive, constructive, frequent, and immediate, helping students know to plan and improve
Students are actively, consistently, and effectively involved in assessment including learning to manage their own learning through the skills of self-assessment
Students actively, consistently, and effectively communicate with others about their achievement status and improvement
Teachers understand the relationship between assessment and student motivation and use assessment to build students success and confidence rather than failure and defeat

Community

Yuma Middle School believes in involving the parent and community in a partnership to ensure academic success

In such a school parents and community

Provide a positive home environment that supports all students’ physical, social-emotional, and academic needs
Support teachers’ high expectations of all students
Communicate directly with classroom teachers any academic concerns
Support the vision of Yuma Middle School