Stone Hill Middle

Stone Hill MS is a place for learning, where everything is awesome and hunky-dory. However, in this year's distance learning environment, some major issues are popping up, like broken links, inability to submit assignments, resulting in F's, and an excessive amount of Google Meet disconnections. Here is how LCPS and SHMS should fix these extremely important issues:

1. Switch from Google Meet, which is still a prototype and is flawed, to Zoom, a very popular app used to communicate with a large amount of people.
2. Extend due dates and exempt students with technical issues/difficulties
3. Revert to Google Classroom instead of Schoology

An earlier reviewer complained of not SHMS not giving enough homework and also of not grading the students down when they turn in late work. Just want to clarify the homework policy. Homework should be practice for what we are teaching. Homework augments their work. However, we cannot put a high emphasis on work done out of our eyesight because we do not know who is doing it: a friend, a parent... or even a website of purchased essays. Thus they have a 90 minute resource block where they can do homework, and we as teachers can come in and help them with it.

As for not grading down when they are late, we have a policy of mastery. The grade represents their level of learning, not their personality or whether or not they are responsible. So if they turn in projects late, they are still graded for their ability. We are educators and we need the parents to help us teach responsibility. If a student is smart and aces their tests but is lazy at home and procrastinates, maybe the parent should not wait for the teacher to grade him down as punishment, but should proactively make sure they are staying on top of their work.

Lastly, the SOL scores are consistently high for the majority of the students. For example, in English, they have been averaging 96% pass rate with at least 50% in the advanced category. I think the school's policies are working out just fine and that SHMS is a great place to learn... and to teach!

Stone Hill is finding its way as a new school. They are trying to engage volunteerism more and traditions are not yet established. The administration is accessible and responsive. The school is super friendly to guests and my son is very happy there. I am trying to get used to the idea that kids are allowed to retake tests if they earn a below 80% test score. Of course, they then can only earn a 90%. This may explain why so many kids are on the honor roll, but that is not conclusive. The idea of re-testing is a great concept, unless you have children who might just risk it and re-take and study if need be. I am concerned that when my children reach high school, they won't be prepared to study hard since my child studies very little, but needs to. This re-taking of tests is not unique, it is county wide, I believe. Many children study for tests, and many don't.

My child does little homework and still gets A's and B's. The teachers don't down grade him much when work is turned in late. I worry the teachers pad the grades because even with multiple late assignments, his grade is similar to those who are more responsible. Most parents would be happy, but my biggest goal for middle school is that when my child reaches high school, he is well prepared and understands the importance of being prepared and able to study effectively. Just like over-complimenting children is not good for their development, neither is grade inflation because the result is, "why should I work harder when I come home with A's and B's?"

To talk about the teachers, they are phenomenal. They are extremely bright and well versed in their subjects, I can't imagine getting better qualified people to teach my child.

In conclusion, the school is great, just wish the culture and grading was stricter and better prepared them for real life and life in higher education. Our goal is to produce a work force who know how to work hard and compete in this very competitive world.

I just started middle school and I go to school there its great everyone is super nice and everyone is willing to help you