“It’s like a small family here,” Principal Darin Eich said of the fifth and sixth graders in the LWC Intermediate School.
The new Junior High addition at the high school houses the district’s seventh and eighth graders and the former LWC Middle School is now home to the fifth and sixth graders. The building is now called LWC Intermediate School.
Eich said the transition has been great.
“The students are a lot of fun. You can joke with them, but they know when it’s time to go to work, then it’s time to go to work,” said Eich.
This is the first year that the Worthing fifth grade students have attended school in Lennox and Eich said he has heard no complaints from the students or parents, with the exception of the recent snow day when busses were unable to transport students due to the weather.
But the students have settled right in, said Eich, and having them altogether allows for equal educational opportunity for all students. There are 185 students in the building and the configuration of the school allows easy access from classroom to classroom. The students have their own lunch room, music room and gymnasium.
Sixth grade students have their lockers in the hallway and the fifth grade students have their lockers in their homeroom. There are four sections in each grade level.
The students have a modified block scheduling, Eich explained, with reading and math every day and the remaining subjects every other day.
The building shares staff with the elementary and junior high, so scheduling is challenging, admitted Eich. That is why the intermediate, junior high and both elementary schools all have the modified block scheduling with black and orange days.
Eich is also the elementary principal so he divides his time between the two buildings. He makes that work with the help of Rebecca Kuyper, the assistant principal.
Kuyper enjoys the new Intermediate school as well.
“It’s going great,” said Kuyper. “I love it.”
Besides the regular curriculum, Eich said that several other programs are also being implemented in the Intermediate School as well.
Reading Plus continues where the elementary Ticket to Read program leaves off.
“We wanted something that would push the kids reading, based on their interest levels,” said Eich.
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