Kids are caught in be-tween

They don't call them tweens for nothing.

Sixth-graders — typically 11 or 12 years old — are stuck between childhood and adolescence.

Those still in elementary school cherish their last year of regular recess. Those put in a middle school savor the independence of lunch menu choices.

So where's the best place for their burgeoning brains and personalities?

If our schools are any indication, there's not much consensus among educators. Schools use all sorts of configurations for middle school. Nowadays, it's space that drives the decision, not necessarily what's best for students academically.

About half of the sixth-graders in Douglas and Sarpy Counties attend elementary schools, while one-third are assigned to middle schools. Council Bluffs this year moved all sixth-graders into middle schools.

Outside the metro area, it varies as well. And nearly all parochial schools offer an entirely different setup: kindergarten through eighth grade.

“Sixth-graders are kind of a unique group,” said Ralston Superintendent Jerry Riibe. “They're not really elementary, but not ready to be as independent as seventh grade.”

It's a difficult time. One year, you're the top dog. The next, you're the baby on the block.

Seventh- and eighth-graders walked confidently and quickly as the school year got under way last week at Millard North Middle School.

Sixth-grader Lexi Johnson-Deane took small steps and wore a “Do-I-really-want-to-do-this” look. On her second day of school — the first with the eighth-graders — she wasn't sure if middle school was right for her.

“I'm still kinda scared,” said the 11-year-old, wearing a black zip-up hoodie with a pink skull-and-crossbones pattern. “Yesterday, I couldn't get my locker open.”

She spoke softly but got louder and more excited when she talked about three new friends she made the day before.

A focus on middle-level grades — defined as grades four through nine in Nebraska and five through eight in Iowa — began in the 1970s and '80s, said Alfred Arth, an education professor at York College in York, Neb. He helped the National Middle School Association articulate its philosophy in 1981.

In 1988, there were 35 or so schools with grades six through eight in Nebraska, he said.

Today, there are more than 130, including large districts such as those in Lincoln and Grand Island, and it's the most common grade combination for middle schools nationwide.

Council Bluffs made space for pre-kindergartners this year by putting sixth-graders in its middle schools. Omaha Public Schools is considering the same move.

Arth advocates for middle schools where students have ample support systems: homeroom time for teacher help with homework, chances to redo an assignment or partial credit for work attempted.

That sort of philosophy, he said, can work for sixth-graders in any setting. But ultimately, he said, sixth grade belongs in a middle school, because teachers have more specialized training. Nebraska's middle school teachers are required to focus on two subjects.

In addition, national research suggests that increasing the number of years a student attends middle school — from two years to three or four — can strengthen student connection as well as parent involvement. Those factors have been linked positively to student achievement.

Superintendent Martha Bruckner said that idea factored into the Council Bluffs switch. Parents tend to be involved in their child's elementary and high school years.

“They fall by the wayside in middle school,” she said.

And a middle school, with hundreds of sixth-graders, can offer coursework and electives that elementary schools, with only a couple dozen, can't.

Millard sixth-graders, for example, take a world language survey class, consumer science and computer programming. Those classes offer a taste of high school and can help students stay interested in what they learn, increasing the likelihood they'll graduate.

Kathy Brandt, a licensed clinical social worker and mother of a middle schooler, isn't convinced that one setting is necessarily better than the other.

The rate of development varies widely during the middle school years, she said. Some boys start puberty in the sixth grade, others not until the ninth grade. And because parents send their children to kindergarten at varying ages, a sixth-grader could be 11, 12 or 13 years old

So what's most important, she said, isn't when students change schools, but how.

“Some point they've got to make that transition,” said Brandt, who is with Children's Hospital & Medical Center in Omaha. “The more important thing is how the educators manage that, their way of dealing with kids who are making that transition.”

Most middle schools are divided into teams, so that a group of students will work with the same teacher or teachers for most of the day.

Sixth-graders have all sorts of ideas on where they belong.

In Deanna Anderson's sixth-grade class at Ralston's Meadows Elementary, students are split.

Elementary or middle?

Nine said they're in the right spot, while nine pined for a seat at the middle school.

Ronnell Madden looks forward to the lunch line; he'll get three meal choices instead of one next year. Easton Lavicky can't wait to change classrooms for every subject.

But Brooklyn Weeler and Tomer Palmon said they're lucky to have the chance to be role models for their younger schoolmates and an extra year to practice good organization — before they have to carry their books from class to class.

Contact the writer:

444-1037, michaela.saunders@owh.com