Middle School

As students enter Sixth Grade at The Bush School, they meet new classmates, move to a new area of campus, and face new daily experiences. They work with a different teacher for each subject, move between classrooms for each period, use a locker to store and organize their class materials, and adjust to the block schedule of longer classes that meet every other day. Middle School Dean of Academics Lindsey Mutschler is mindful that these daily demands require the development of new skills for a Sixth Grade student. It is a school’s responsibility to teach students how to be a student, or, in Lindsey’s words, “how to manage your business as a student.” 

Neurodivergent students, who represent between twenty and thirty percent of the K-12 student body at Bush, may face additional challenges in areas of executive functioning and other student skills that are thrust to the forefront in Middle School. The team of Lindsey and Middle School Learning Specialist Betsy Wandasiewicz, in partnership with the entire Middle School faculty, are implementing new structures, support, and practices to bolster the existing layers of support for neurodiverse learners at Bush. 

While representing different ends of the spectrum of tenure at Bush—Betsy is in her twenty-third year and Lindsey is in her first during the 2022-2023 academic year—they are united in creating pathways for success for all students in the Middle School. Betsy works directly with students to build their skills in Middle School, and Lindsey works with faculty to ensure that opportunities to practice these skills are intentionally incorporated into the classroom curriculum in each grade level. Reflecting on the skills and habits they want students to have in place by the end of Eighth Grade, both spoke to the importance of students understanding themselves as learners and knowing how to advocate for their needs and growth.

Neurodiversity is one of the multiple layers of diversity at Bush that strengthens and enhances our learning community. “It’s important to have different people and different kinds of thinkers in our world and in our community,” Betsy said. “Neurodiversity represents the greater world, and we need all this good, divergent thinking and approaches in looking at the world. Everyone benefits from it.” 

Lindsey agreed, expanding on the direct benefits in schools. “Research shows that diversity of all kinds makes for smarter, more creative teams,” Lindsey said. “We want our students to experience what they will in the outside world, and the world is diverse in lots of ways. School communities benefit from the broad range of perspectives and experiences that neurodiverse learners bring.” 

Betsy shared: “I want a Middle School student to develop an understanding of, ‘What are my strengths, areas of growth, and what are the tools I have to manage my needs and areas of growth?’” Lindsey expanded further, saying, “by Eighth Grade we want our students to go to Upper School being comfortable talking about who they are as a student. What tools and resources are available to them? They can talk confidently to adults in their lives and self-advocate for their needs, either through more support or more challenge.” 

For students with diagnosed learning differences, Betsy creates an individualized learning plan with accommodations to grant access to the grade-level curriculum. On any given day, Betsy may do a one-on-one check-in with a student around an organizational goal, or support another student in identifying a new goal and scaffolding the steps they will take to make progress. She may also meet with a student without a diagnosis but who is struggling to meet deadlines or break down a long-term project into incremental steps. 

“Part of the work I do is helping kids and parents get to the root of the challenge, digging in with the student and listening to what the area of challenge is, and reflecting back to them what needs to be worked on,” Betsy said. 

These conversations lead to one of Betsy’s favorite parts of her job. Betsy shares that an especially gratifying part of her job is “the detective work that it takes to understand what might be impacting a student, or what tools they need or their teachers need.” This work  leads to the ultimate outcome of “giving students, families, and teachers hope. I can walk hand-in-hand with parents, students, and teachers to increase the sense of what’s possible and help them feel more confident moving forward.” 

Important to the success of individual students, and to the overall sustainability of the learning support program in the Middle School, Betsy is not in this work alone. Teachers, advisors, outside resources, and divisional administrators like Lindsey all work in concert to help students develop and meet their goals. Betsy and Lindsey both work with faculty to ensure each teacher is familiar with the accommodations plan for individual students and offer coaching around supporting the needs of students. Betsy explained she will offer guidance to help teachers “figure out how their instruction, class materials, or expectations can support all students.”

Lindsey emphasized that having multiple adults and structures in place for extra support is beneficial for all students, but especially for neurodiverse learners. A new weekly structured study hall time during Blazer Block, as well as the new twice-weekly after-school Check Out study hall, give consistent and dedicated blocks in the day to allow students to check in with teachers and allow teachers more opportunities to work one-on-one or in small groups with students. To Betsy, these times have been beneficial in opening up more opportunities for coaching to happen. The new study hall environments also normalize getting help from teachers to work through academic challenges and new concepts.  

The dean of academics role is also a new addition to the Bush Middle School leadership team, and a key part of Lindsey’s work has been holding the big picture of what is being asked of students and how students are supported in their development from Sixth to Eighth Grade. Together with Assistant Head of School for Academics Sarah Smith, Lindsey has led the Middle School faculty in utilizing the Understanding by Design (UbD™) framework to reconsider and articulate the scope and sequence of curriculum for each subject area and grade level. UbD™ encourages backward design which includes articulating the end goals for students and then designing curriculum by thinking about the big ideas, questions, and skills needed to reach that end point. 

The four essential questions of the UbD framework—Where do we want our students to go? How are we going to get them there? How will we know when they “get it”? How will we know when they do not and what we will do? Lindsey invites faculty to be “reflective and intentional about our learning aims and the roadmap to get there.” Offering clear and consistent roadmaps benefits all students in knowing how to assess their own learning and understanding in a class. Sarah has partnered with all three divisions to implement the UbD™ framework in a yearlong scope and sequence process, bringing in outside experts to provide professional development and consultation with faculty. 

At the same time the faculty is engaging in revamping their scope and sequence, Lindsey has been working with them to align standards and practices across subjects and grade levels. She implemented a change in the proficiency scale used on report cards, with the goals of offering greater insight and clarity into student skill development and creating shared vocabulary around standard assessment for assignments and report cards. 

In addition to curriculum development, faculty have been focused on implementing a teaching approach that works to accommodate the needs and abilities of all learners and eliminates unnecessary hurdles in the learning process. This pedagogy, Universal Design for Learning (UDL), is defined by developing a learning environment where information is presented in different ways, students engage in a variety of ways, and students have the opportunity to demonstrate their learning in multiple modes. 

Providing options for perception, expression, and comprehension of information in the classroom are all considerations for UDL. The goal is to create an inclusive learning environment while not changing the course expectations. Course outcomes remain the same, but the options provided meet all students in ways they learn best. This approach reaches every student whether or not they have diagnosed learning differences. There is a path for every student when using UDL principles in the classroom. Borrowing Simon Sinek’s The Golden Circle, the UbD™ framework for curriculum development is the “what” and Universal Design for Learning  (UDL) is the “how”.  The “why” is Bush’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. 

Lindsey and Betsy’s shared belief that diversity in learning makes us all stronger is also reflected in the school’s strategic framework. The framework, which centers five strategic priorities, calls out the importance of neurodiversity as part of the school’s focus to inspire learners. The inspiring work toward these goals in the Middle School is in capable hands with the vision and collaborative leadership  of Betsy and Lindsey. Together with the faculty, they shepherd students through the growth, skill development, challenges, and triumphs of the Middle School years to discover who they are as learners and empowered to continue their journey into Upper School.