Don’t have a middle-schooler yet, you say? Lower school parents, please continue reading! The concept of MS Choice Electives, new this year, is another great example of MV faculty’s creativity and dedication to student learning and development.
As we all know, student inquiry is at the very heart of Mount Vernon School, and the Choice Elective program was conceived to allow Mustangs in grades 6-8 to deepen their Arts & Design interests. The existing Arts & Design curriculum is based on a six-week rotation through several courses, ranging from various performing arts options to maker and visual arts. While the rotation is already a great addition to the core academic classes, Matt Neylon, Mount Vernon’s Director of Visual and Performing Arts, and his team learned through student and faculty feedback that there is a strong desire to go deeper in a particular area of student interest. Moreover, providing MS Mustangs with the opportunity to select several courses on their own helps prepare them for the curriculum structure of high school and beyond.
Matt and team brainstormed and developed not just a list of elective courses but also how best to integrate them into an already busy MS student schedule. In Spring 2022, there are 10 electives for 6th graders to choose from and a list of 11 options for 7-8th grade Mustangs:
Grade 6 Choices
- Brass/Woodwinds
- Percussion
- Strings
- Voice
- Dance
- Digital Communication
- Drawing
- Puppetry
- Woodworking
- Athletic Development
Grade 7-8 Choices
- Jazz Band
- Percussion
- Strings
- Voice
- Dance
- Digital Communication
- Drawing
- Making a Musical
- Programming
- Design Your Life
- Athletic Development
Students submit their top five elective choices at the start of each semester, with the goal of enrolling in their #1 choice course, to be taken two days/week in place of Recess. There is an opportunity to continue with the same course through the next semester, or students can mix it up (which is encouraged!). The Choice Elective faculty is comprised of full-time MV teachers as well as experts contracted externally to teach a particular course, and students meet with each teacher ahead of submitting their top course choices to understand the class objectives.
Once students submit their ranked choices, Matt and team sort nearly 300 students into courses that match their passions/curiosities/aptitudes. While this is a challenging and time-consuming effort, it is done to foster new opportunities for growth and deepen students’ skills of their choice. Incredibly, in Fall 2021, of 297 MS students, 294 enrolled in one of their top 3 choices, and no one was registered in his/her 5th (last) choice. Thank you, Matt Neylon and team, for your passion and dedication to well-rounded learning opportunities and a curriculum that has breadth as well as depth!