Changes Expected to Improve Ottoson Experience

After completing his first year as principal of Ottoson Middle School, Timothy Ruggere said he couldn't be more pleased with his staff, student body and Arlington's school officials, but he also realizes there are always ways for educational institutions to improve.

"If you don't move forward, you're actually falling back," he said recently. "We continue to look at ways to strengthen our program of studies and make changes to that end."

One of those changes for the upcoming school year is streamlining the students' schedules and making classes more uniform.

"We want to have the entire building be as consistent as possible," Ruggere said, "so that transitions are seamless for the kids. We don't want them to have a different routine every time they walk into a new class."

To facilitate this goal, Ruggere moved teachers into different teams, consisting of math, science, social studies and English instructors. The teams work together on cross-curricular activities so that teachers can share knowledge about students and maintain instructional consistency from one class to another.

Quarterly progress reports will also be sent from the principal's office for every student this coming year. The reports were sent during the past two quarters last year, but this will be the first full year of such documentation.

"As a parent of two children, I definitely want to know how they're doing in school," Ruggere said. "With progress reports coming out on a more regular basis, parents can know ahead of time if there's an issue and exactly what is going on with their children."

The middle school will also be adding a new program, "Women in Engineering," which is sponsored by the Museum of Science. Ottoson hired a new technology teacher who will be working with museum personnel on the program, previously called technology education, which Ruggere described as moving technology away from wood-working and closer to engineering.

"We want to move the course into 21st Century learning that embraces math and science," he said, "and we want to encourage the female population to become more involved in the engineering and architectural fields."

Perhaps the biggest change at Ottoson this coming year is the adoption of, "The World of Difference," a program sponsored by the Anti-Defamation League.

"We want to be proactive with the Chapter 92 law (which addresses bullying detection and prevention)," Ruggere said. "We want to stop it before it starts, which is why we will have two teachers trained in how to recognize the signs and put a stop to it."

Once the two teachers are trained in September, they will provide training for the entire staff and then select 25 students in October to be trained as peer mediators.

Ruggere said he still remembers how it felt to be bullied when he attended a middle school where there was little supervision.

"We now know where bullying takes place – in the bathrooms, locker rooms, cafeteria and between class," he said. "We want our students to recognize it when they see it."

The middle school doesn't have a lot of problems with bullying, Ruggere said. In fact, he said for a student body of almost 1,200 students, it's amazing how few of them ever show up in the principal's office for disciplinary matters.

However, the school did have an incident last year where a student made anti-Semitic remarks and was posting similar comments on Facebook.

"I was very proud of how the other student handled it," Ruggere said. "They came forward to tell us about it, and we were able to intercede and get help for the student who was making the remarks."

Right after the incident, the school started an anti-hate task force, comprised of students, parents, teachers and religious leaders to discuss what to do about not only bullying but also racism and harassment.

"That's how we came up with the idea of, 'The World of Difference,'" Ruggere said. "It will give teachers and students tools to be more aware of it and know how to handle it when they see it."

The 25 students chosen to be peer mediators will be mixed representation of all abilities.

"The students ate Ottoson are exceptional and get along very well," Ruggere said. "But this is an age when some explore the 'pecking order' as a way of finding where they fit into the community. We want all our students to be comfortable and respectful of each other's differences and feelings."