Unit Context 

Albemarle County Public Schools 

The Albemarle County Public Schools district serves around 14,000 students 

(13,910 as of September 2017) who hail from home environments ranging from urban to 

rural, though the latter makes up the majority of cases. The district is composed of 25 

schools: 15 elementary schools (PK-5), five middle schools (6-8), one charter middle 

school (6-8), three high schools (9-12), and one charter high school (9-12). The student 

body is not terribly diverse: 65.4% are White, 12.8% Hispanic, 10.5% Black, and 11.3% 

other races. In addition, just 10% of ACPS students are ELLs, and the socioeconomic 

makeup includes just 30% of disadvantaged students. 11.9% of students in the district 

receive special education services, and 9.8% are identified as gifted. 

In terms of students’ academic performance, the district boasts a 94.7% 

graduation rate, compared to the state of Virginia’s 91.1% graduation rate. In addition, 

81.5% of the 1,129 students taking AP tests passed their tests in the 2016-2017 school 

year.  

ACPS is at work on their Horizon 2020 plan, a strategic plan designed to 

“unleash each student’s potential,” according to their fact sheet. The primary values of 

the plan are excellence, young people, community, and respect. In helping its students 

to master lifelong learning skills, ACPS has set five goals for itself in this plan: engage 

every student, implement balanced assessments, improve opportunity and 

achievement, create and expand partnerships, and optimize resources. 

Jack Jouett Middle School 

Jack Jouett MS is one of five middle schools in the ACPS division. The enrollment 

as of September 2017 includes 559 students, whose demographic makeup is as 

follows: 50% White, 20% Hispanic, 19% Black, 7% Asian/Pacific Islander, and 5% 

mixed race. 21.5% of students are ELLs, 13.8% have disabilities, and 12% have been 

identified as gifted. Jouett’s demographic makeup is somewhat representative of that 

of Albemarle County Public Schools, described above.  

According to SOL test data from the 2016-2017 school year, Jouett has a 78% 

pass rate for the mathematics test and 74% for the reading test. These rates are up 

from the previous school year’s rates of 77% and 67%, respectively. 

Jouett, like ACPS, has a 1:1 technology policy, meaning that each student is 

provided a laptop to use in class. Teachers determine technology use in class, and 

student use of technology is monitored. No student is permitted to use their phone in 

the halls, but eighth graders are permitted to listen to music in between classes. 

Students are given a lot of freedom in other aspects of their learning, though the 

students themselves do not perceive the environment this way. Policy infractions are 

met with strict, well-defined rules designed to encourage academic performance; for 

example, a student unprepared for class will receive an Unprepared mark and a lunch 

detention. Students who violate classroom expectations are asked to take a Reset, 

which refers to a non-punitive behavior regulation policy that asks students to reflect 

on their behavior by leaving the room, retrieving a Reset form from the office, talking 
with a counselor about their behavior and filling out the form together, then returning 

to class. 

In terms of extracurricular activities, Jouett boasts a strong arts department, 

with students participating in drama, orchestra, concert band, and jazz band. Student 

clubs range from guitar club to model UN to wind power club. Students also maintain 

a garden and participate in intramural sports. At the end of the day on Wednesdays, 

students have Intramurals, Clubs, and Activities time (ICA). During this time, students 

who do not participate in intramurals or clubs have the opportunity to do activities with 

their teachers, ranging from manicures to art projects. 

Jouett prides itself on its Momentum program, a series of learning experiences 

designed to increase empathy among students. The Momentum initiative aims to 

educate students about interpersonal relations as they reach adolescence. Momentum 

is a thirty-minute period that occurs once a week, during which time students’ third 

block teachers deliver a short lesson related to the grade level’s overarching subject 

matter (sixth grade deals with bullying, seventh grade with gender and sexuality, and 

eighth grade with sexual assault). 

The school’s class schedule is a block schedule, with all classes running around 

90 minutes on alternating Green and Gold Days. Classes are tracked in ascending 

order as collaborative, standard, and advanced/honors level, though collaborative 

classes are technically a subset of the standard level. 

   
7th Grade Advanced Honors ELA Classroom 

My 4882 class includes 25 students: 15 are White, 5 are Hispanic, 2 are Asian, 1 is 

Black, and 2 are mixed race. None of those students are currently receiving English 

language learning (ELL) services, but at least 6 are former ELL students. 1 student 

learns under an IEP, and 2 are gifted. The vast majority of these students (with just a 

handful of exceptions) enjoy coming to class, consistently complete their assignments, 

ask thoughtful questions, and perform well on exams. 

My mentor teacher, Ms. Brown, has been at Jouett for two years and teaches 

both 6th and 7th grade ELA. At the start of the year, Ms. Brown sets strict parameters 

and rules for how she wants to manage her class. Some rules are non-negotiable, 

while others are created with the students. For the first two months, she is strict with 

the rules, and once students demonstrate the behavior she wants, she grows more lax, 

but gives periodic refreshers of the rules so as not to lose control. She also uses humor 

to direct behavior and speaks quietly in order to keep her students engaged. To get 

students’ attention, Ms. Brown squeezes a squeaky toy, which students understand 

they should meet with silence and active listening. If individual students continually fail 

to become quiet at the squeaky toy sound, Ms. Brown asks them to take a “reset,” a 

behavior management policy in which students fill out a half-sheet explaining their 

behavior and how they will prevent it in the future, and come back when they feel 

ready to act as they are expected. Students do come back in after a short while, which 

means that Ms. Brown has established a classroom environment in which students 

respect their teacher and their peers enough to self-correct. In addition, Ms. Brown 
employs a class points incentive system to encourage positive student behavior. Points 

are never subtracted, only added, so that positive reinforcement becomes the norm. 

When a class accumulates 200 points, they earn a class party. 

Ms. Brown has decorated her classroom with colorful borders and posters, 

including anchor charts about polite agreement and disagreement, inspirational 

quotes, and hand-painted canvases. She also has a word wall and a reference board 

with school-wide information posted for students’ convenience. Ms. Brown’s 

classroom library is well-stocked, with baskets of books available for students to 

peruse all around the classroom. She has three full bookshelves and eight additional 

book baskets on her windowsill, while students’ literature circle books are stacked on 

a table beneath the SMARTBoard. 

Student desks are arranged in groups of four or five so that each student is able 

to see the front board from their seat. There is ample room between desk clusters for 

Ms. Brown to walk around and monitor students while they work. In addition, this desk 

arrangement allows Ms. Brown to sit down with her students in her small first block 

class. Students also have flexible seating options, including cushy ottomans, an 

armchair, pillows, buckets, lawn chairs, and a rocking chair. Students store their class 

materials in labeled baskets in the back of the room so that their work areas do not 

become cluttered. 

   
Student Profiles 

Malekye is a bright young boy whose home life is complicated. He comes from a 

circumstance of poverty, and his mother works two jobs to keep his family afloat. As a 

result, he does not get to spend as much time with her as he would like. He is involved 

in several extracurricular activities, especially sports, in order to keep him at school 

until his mother can pick him up. Due to the fact that he does not get a lot of attention 

from his mother at home, Malekye latches onto female teachers and vies constantly for 

their attention. Sometimes this attention-seeking behavior is disruptive, but more often 

than not, it simply involves Malekye inviting teachers to his games, striking up 

conversations with them during downtime, and coming to their classrooms before 

school starts. 

Shamya is a Black girl who was hospitalized last year following her struggle with 

anorexia. Because her hospitalization meant that she was out of school for an entire 

year, she is one grade level behind her age cohort; not only that, but the skills she 

needs to succeed in school, especially her literacy skills, have grown dull with disuse, 

and the quality of work she turns in is quite low. She is on an academic improvement 

plan and sees the guidance counselor frequently. Shamya almost never participates in 

activities that require her to speak aloud, and she rarely raises her voice above a 

whisper. Nevertheless, her classmates attempt to include her in everything they do, 

and Shamya does sometimes join her peers in group learning activities. 

Anjan is a former ELL student whose native language is Tagalog. He is a ​very 

outgoing boy and gets along well with all of his classmates, but he is sometimes 
unfocused in class. The quality of his work is generally good, but he often includes 

references to his favorite pop culture where such references should not appear, and he 

doodles his favorite characters in the margins of many of his worksheets. Anjan also 

has a hard time sticking to one task at a time and becomes distracted very easily when 

he gives into the temptation to talk with his classmates or decides to leave the room. 

Madeline (Maddie) is a gifted girl who comes from a rural home environment. 

Her morning routine involves waking up before sunrise to complete her chores on her 

family’s farm and finish up any homework she did not have time to do the night before. 

Maddie is an avid reader and a keen literary analyst. She excels in English especially 

and always raises her hand to participate in class, providing the most sophisticated yet 

clear answers to any questions. The only challenge Maddie faces in class is that she 

tends to rush her work so she can get back to whatever book she is reading at the time.