How are the "teams" developed in the middle schools?

Students are assigned to teams based upon the courses taught on each team. The real driver of the process is the mathematics courses. The second driver of team placement is music courses and when they are offered within the master schedule. After the course framework of each team is built, students needing each type of math course and music course are divided equally among the teams with those offerings.  This process repeats itself each year.

 Students do have the opportunity to interact with other students throughout the day.  However, staffing limits the frequency of these interactions. For example, in 6^th grade EMS has two four-teacher teams, one three-teacher team, and one two-teacher team. On teams that have four teachers, students have four times throughout the day where they can get their content offerings. On three- teacher teams students have three times for the main content and one time for social studies, and on a two-teacher team, students only have two times where each content is taught. Therefore, students on teams with more teachers will mix with other students more frequently in team courses than students with only two teachers. The best metaphor for this process is a deck of cards. Students on a team are represented by the cards. You take the deck, shuffle, and then divide them among the frequency a course is offered.

All related arts courses are blended with students from other teams, and lunch is scheduled by grade level.