Lincoln Middle School

The administrators are bad for your children. If these numbers don't say anything to you then don't say I didn't warn you.

My son goes there and he absolutely loves that school

I have had nothing but problems with Lincoln since my son started there last year in 6th grade. The teachers pulled him out of General Education nearly full-time after he did wonderfully in the Gen. Ed. classroom in 5th grade. They call me nearly every day, sometimes numerous times, for ridiculous questions and "problems." We have had dealings with administration in regards to bullying countless times, and nothing is being done about it. Save for one, the teachers seem to genuinely not care about my student's success, and their standardized test scores are abysmal. I am EXTREMELY disappointed and unhappy with Lincoln in general, and am looking to transfer to another school as soon as possible.

I currently have three students at Lincoln Middle School, one 8th grader and two 7th graders. Middle school is a hard time on kids and mine have had their ups and downs, but through it all we've had wonderful support from the teachers and staff. In fact, if I were only able to talk about one aspect of the school, I would focus on the teachers.

I'm involved in the PTO and have helped out in a couple different classrooms for extended periods of time so I've gotten to know the staff fairly well. The teachers love their jobs. They enjoy being with the kids. They push the envelope in order to find creative ways to not just teach the material, but to get the students to engage with the material as well. Every time I have had to contact a teacher, I've found the teacher to be responsive and helpful.

I'm also excited by the integration of service learning opportunities throughout the curriculum. Last year, in 6th grade, the students interviewed residents of a local nursing home and wrote down their stories in order not only to learn that history isn't as far distant as they might imagine, but also to help these residents have a written (or videotaped) record of their lives that they could pass down to their families. The 7th grade wrote a curriculum for a school in Africa that could be accessed through the computers that the school had sent the year before. The 8th grade had several service learning projects, including a community-wide round table discussion at CSU in which they hosted and moderated discussions which included people directly involved in both sides of the uranium mining that has been proposed just northwest of Fort Collins. And of course, there's the yearly Nicaragua trip (which is becoming a Costa Rica trip next year) in which the students go to San Juan del Sur and help out with the local lending library down there as well as bring clothes and other needed items to two orphanages there.

But, as I said in my first paragraph, middle school isn't all sunshine and daisies. We've had our share of problems as well: learning to deal with uncomfortable social situations, learning to do group work when not everyone participates, etc. But in every problem that I've had to interact with a teacher, counselor or administrator over, I've found the staff incredibly helpful and responsive. I come away feeling like the people at the school really do want the best for my kid. They want him (my 8th grader) or her (my 7th graders) not to just be removed from the problem they're dealing with, but to grow through it and find ways of dealing with it. One of the big things my 8th grader has been learning this year is to build relationships with his counselor and the vice-principal so that when something does come up in class, he can advocate for himself and get help from adults right there in the school (instead of having to hide or call home for help). He's matured immensely this year because of this process.

Fort Collins has a lot of great middle schools. I've met kids from many of them and they all have similar experiences to what we've seen at Lincoln. Two of the things that set Lincoln apart from the others is the chance to learn multi-culturalism in a hands-on setting and the increasingly integrated IB curriculum that pulls the many disciplines together and often does so through experiential service-learning projects. Lincoln also has some great after school opportunities (such as cooking classes, movie making classes, robotics, and the Lincoln Jam which is gaining increasing notoriety throughout Fort Collins).