NVMS Vision for Students Shapes a WIN

A small tweak is making a major difference in the student experience at Nooksack Valley Middle School. It comes from listening to the students about what gives them their best school experience.

What was formerly called Academy time at NVMS has changed this year into WIN (What I Need) and gives every student in the building both a targeted academic opportunity and an enrichment class. 

“We just listened to what students’ shared,” says Joel VanderYacht, NVMS principal about working with the University of Washington to understand the middle school student experience and create a Vision of Student Experience plan. “It started with interviewing our students and we watched and observed as they told us about their best experience at Nooksack Valley Middle School.”

Those best experiences ranged from first days to last days, but often included field trips and the enrichment classes offered as part of the school’s Academy time. The problem was that not every student was able to get enrichment opportunities, such as learning to play guitar, a basketball skills class, graphic design instruction or fashion, gardening or Lego building classes. In the previous setup, students not at pace academically spent Academy in a targeted academic environment while students ahead of the curve were offered an enrichment opportunity. 

 But as students continually shared how they valued enrichment and how it helped them stay connected to the school, VanderYacht says “our teachers started asking ‘why aren’t we giving enrichment opportunities for all students, why don’t we build that into what we do?’ We want to give them a place to embrace who they are.” 

WIN solves that. Now aligned with the school’s A day/B day schedule, every student has a targeted academic time, still helping those struggling, but also giving others additional challenges, such as an Algebra Academy, advanced problem solving or reading and writing they wouldn’t have been exposed to for years. 

Along with an academic focus, every student also gains an enrichment opportunity. VanderYacht says they’ve aligned many of the sessions to expose students to possible careers, such as much of the visual arts enrichments happening on computers to mimic real-world scenarios. 

Vanderyacht says student experience is at the heart of the change. He recalls a student who saw enrichment totally change his entire middle school experience. As a sixth grader he regularly went home early, disengaged from school. In seventh grade he was able to get into guitar enrichment and made a connection on a sports team. “He’s having a totally different experience now as an eighth grader than as a sixth grader,” VanderYacht says, “and part of that is asking how can we create an experience for this student?”