“Try it!” Whether stepping onto the stage, smashing an overhand serve in a volleyball game, or just
using a semicolon properly, CSUS Middle School students try it. Throughout the middle school
years, CSUS students explore as they define themselves during this critical stage of adolescence.
Guiding and supporting the students in exploration is a faculty dedicated to the intellectual, social
and emotional growth of Middle School students. Working with Upper School–level facilities and
resources, each student develops a spirit of discovery and sets roots in the campus that will be their
academic, athletic, and artistic home for seven years.
In every discipline, CSUS Middle School students survey a wide range of subject matter. We do not ask students to specialize in one discipline, but rather encourage them to delve into all subjects. The literature buff is also a geologist in sixth grade and then an engineer building a winning balloon racer in eighth grade. The academic program continuously asks students to try something new, to explore their intellect. The seventh grade student who has found “her thing” in the history of the Middle East is asked to continue to explore and draw connections as she dives into American history in eighth grade.
Academic exploration requires our students to get up from their chair, grab a notebook and try it. Test a hypothesis about chemical reactions in the Commons. Follow your teacher on a scavenger hunt around campus. Learning is active in the Middle School. Academics also take each middle school grade off campus. Seventh graders become active field biologists in Half Moon Bay and the sixth graders are poets writing verse in front of masterpieces at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco. Finally, each year culminates in an overnight field-study program. These trips have been to such places as the Grand Canyon, historic Williamsburg and Washington, DC.
The intellectual exploration of the Middle School program builds a tremendous foundation for academic success in Upper School and beyond. The math classes blend seamlessly into the Upper School program and language classes enable students to take Advanced Placement courses as early as Sophomore year. More importantly, the “hidden” curriculum of organization, time manage- ment, and goal setting makes our Middle School students the best prepared for the challenges that lie ahead in the Upper School. Our schedule and shared Upper School campus allow advanced students to build on that foundation in Upper School math and language classes.
As each middle school student explores their intellect, he or she is guided by a team of Middle School teachers who work in concert to both challenge and support every child. In frequent grade- level meetings, the academic, athletic, artistic and social needs of each child and the whole grade are discussed. Faculty are not only members of these grade-level teams, but also of a school-wide academic department. They are specialists in both the student and the subject. There are no cracks through which any student can fall.
