Santa Barbara Middle School Grows With The Times
Learning Happens Everywhere We Go
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During this public health crisis, our mission, goals, and promises all remain the same. Santa Barbara Middle School will continue to keep our student’s wellbeing and safety our highest priority while delivering the best middle school education possible. Our learning targets for the year will be met and the intellectual vitality of each of our students will be fostered through engaging lessons, individualized support, and guidance from our compassionate, dedicated and experienced group of educators.
We are actively monitoring the COVID-19 situation with local health experts and our COVID-19 response team and hope to get back on campus as soon as possible. We are extremely grateful for the tremendous level of support, commitment and creative thinking of our community as we start the school year with distance learning.
Over the summer, faculty and staff worked tirelessly to transition curriculums over to our Distance Learning Program (now DLP 4.0) which we started on August 31, 2020. We continue our work to offer the best academic program for our students in these uncertain times as well as continuing the important work of creating community and connection. As the school year unfolds before us, we are working on new options including blended and on-campus learning options in small cohort settings once we are allowed to do so.
With distance learning, each of our students receives:
- A distance learning schedule with Zoom classes and asynchronous classes.
- Access to our Digital Learning Opportunities Program which sets them up with a MacBook and tech resources.
- A customized care package bag with school and electives materials.
- All resources and supplies needed for their academic classes, daily electives, and community connection activities.
All of our yearly learning targets are mapped out to be met and we continue to foster the intellectual vitality of each individual student through:
- Engaging lessons and activities.
- Electives chosen by students.
- Individualized support, advisories and our learning specialist.
- Guidance from our all-star team of dedicated, experienced, and compassionate educators and human beings.
Enjoy a few examples of what students learned about last year during Distance Learning:
- In history class, students witnessed a simulation of Hitler's Blitzkrieg strategy when he invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. The battlefield came alive on history teacher, Marlene Beckerman’s kitchen table to bring relevance to this historic event.
- Our 6th grade science teacher, Danielle Bean, used her document camera, whiteboard, test tubes and chemistry to demonstrate the dynamic activity alive in her chemical reactions unit.
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In our 7th grade Human Geography class, students read and analyzed the book A Long Walk to Water. Next, they designed and prepared their own water carrying device for a “Walk for Water” in their own neighborhoods as they tried to emulate both the value and the struggle of clean water.
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Delivering custom bags to SBMS students' homes with class and electives materials |
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The physical aspect of the Human Geography Walk for Water assignment |
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Marlene teaching WWII battle strategies on her kitchen table in History Alive |
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During the end of last year, our focus was on cultivating a sense of pride and accomplishment in our students by recognizing their tremendous growth and the contributions made by all during this challenging time. To make the last few weeks memorable, keep our community connected, and uphold all of our beloved traditions we:
- Had car parades for each grade,
- Brought back sunrise swim (with safety protocols and guidelines),
- Joined together through music with Songfest,
- Gave back to our community on Day of Service,
- Conquered Adventure Days
- Hosted special remote campfires with honorings in every grade to bring us “together” each night of our last week of school,
- All of this leading up to a special in-person, socially distanced 9th-grade graduation, Rites of Passage.
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A student-planned "Adventure Day" to Red Rocks for a challenging SBMS-style ride |
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Art class to make surprise celebratory graduation signs for our 9th graders |
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A student taking on our Bucket List challenge and keeping our beaches clean |
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FALL 2020-21
Though we were hoping we could start the school year on campus, we made sure to kick-off the year with exciting plans for distance learning and our community (see more in our orientation week Scoop newsletter!)
Academics:
- Our advanced DLP 4.0 program accounts for all our learnings from the Spring semester and is scaffolded to avoid Zoom burnout and allow for ample office hours and one-on-one time with teachers.
Electives:
- This fall we were able to offer our students over 40 electives to choose from to fill their afternoons with activities and new hobbies of all kinds from ukulele to robotics, yoga to D&D, and so much more.
- Starting in October, we are looking into incorporating outdoor physical activities and events like yoga, volleyball skills, surfing and more in a safe and distanced way!
Community:
- We plan on creating pop-up libraries throughout our local community along with sharing 9th grade book reviews at local book stores to help other middle school and high school kids find a book they will love!
- We are continuing our online cooking class, Lick the Plate, where weekly families gather and cook a meal with our beloved school chef, P.A.
- We hope that we can bring back socially distanced sunrise swims and small biking groups as well once the county permits it.
Outdoor Ed:
- We kicked the year off with a school-wide Strava challenge for the month of September to get our families out on the trails and local bike paths. Each student typically bikes 26 miles during our Orientation Ride, so we are asking them to hit that goal and collectively reach 5,000 miles.
- Each week we are featuring a local hike or bike route that we encourage our families to go explore so that we can truly appreciate our own town and stay active.
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Student chalk drawing for Santa Barbara's I Madonnari
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A one-on-one Zoom acoustic guitar lesson |
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Our community cooking class, Lick the Plate |
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What’s Ahead for SBMS:
We are a small, nimble, resourceful school that thrives on finding the silver linings and learning opportunities presented by adversity. We have climbed mountains and weathered storms together. We’ve come through fires and floods together. And now we will face the challenges of this pandemic together. Simply put, “We’ve got this!
As we try to forecast what the rest of the year will bring, SBMS will continue to add more capacity and depth to our remote learning opportunities while also looking for ways for our students to safely get out into our community, spend time together and get back on the road.
When we are able to return to campus, we will do so with a cohort model and health and safety precautions to maximize our academic, elective, and outdoor education opportunities while enhancing life skills and advisories for building authentic relationships with our students. Here you can find a draft of our Return to Campus Plan that was shared with our families to ensure them we will return safely and with protocols in place.
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