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WESTBROOK MIDDLE SCHOOL

471 Stroudwater Street

Westbrook, Maine 04092

Telephone: 207-854-0830

Fax: 207-854-0858

School Hours: 7:25 - 2:05 p.m.

Matthew Nelson - Dean of Curriculum

Robert Griffin - Dean of Students

Sr. Secretary: Jamie Gaudreau

STAFF
K-8 Policy Book

A Message From Dean of Curriculum Matthew Nelson

Welcome to Westbrook Middle School. We are located in Southern Maine and have approximately 570 students in grades 6 8 and sixty professional educators in a brand new school. Our students come from a wide variety of socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds. More than fifteen languages are spoken in the homes of our students. Our diversity is valued by everyone at Westbrook Middle School. We are excited to provide our young adolescents with a safe, stimulating and supportive learning environment in our new state-of-the art facility.

We believe in educating the whole child. All of our students are on academic teams to address their social and emotional needs as well as emphasize interdisciplinary and parallel content. One model does not meet all the needs of our students and team sizes vary from two to four teachers. Some teachers loop with their students and each grade has their own guidance counselor throughout middle school who work hard to put students in a learning environment that meets their educational, emotional and social needs.

Our beautiful new school emphasizes technology and is equipped to help our students thrive in the 21^st century and to help them reach their full potential and prepare them to succeed in a demanding and evolving global economy. All of our students have 1 to 1 access to a MacBook computer. We employ a full-time technology integrator to ensure the best use of all of our technological resources.

We believe a strong sense of belonging and caring among all students and adults in our school is crucial to engaging and motivating everyone to learn. Our identity and our work is framed by relationships. Every adult in our school is important every student matters. We use our relationships with students, parents and the community to make connections among people, places, resources and ideas as the foundation for powerful achievement and excellence.

We believe that students who are not meeting grade level academic standards in literacy and numeracy deserve additional support rather than a reduced curriculum. To help struggling students, we offer a variety of additional instructional opportunities. We have 2.5 staff who teach numeracy and literacy learning labs for students to attend in addition to their regular language arts and math classes. For other students we have a Saturday morning program to help students with literacy and numeracy. We also offer a Summer Academy for students whose NWEA scores are below grade level.

Middle level education can be a challenging time. Ten to fifteen year olds are undergoing the most rapid intellectual and developmental changes of their lives. Our dedicated faculty and community strive to provide all students a successful academic and co-curricular experience. We are committed to having an inviting, supportive and safe environment that promotes learning and develops positive relationships. We are prepared to do all we can to assist our students in learning and achieving success and have this be a magical time and among the best years of schooling and growth.

Please look around our website and contact me at nelsonm@westbrookschools.org with any questions you may have about our school.