Jacob Hiatt Magnet School is a public magnet school in downtown Worcester, MA.
JHMS has a reputation in Worcester as being one of the more academically-successful schools, which they attribute to their use of best practices identified as the following:
- Metacognitive strategies (intentionally accessing prior knowledge of students)
- Explicit vocabulary instruction (critical in such a linguistically diverse place as Worcester)
- Balanced literacy approach
- Hands-on, inquiry based learning
- Flexible groupings and cooperative learning
It is these best practices in combination with the small(er) class sizes and the administration’s choices about who they let and keep in the school that I think leads to JHMS having such a rigorous academic focus and high test scores.
Additionally, JHMS has a very strong sense of community – from what I’ve observed, teachers have a strong sense of communication and use each other as resources which is so crucial to creating an intentional learning environment!
The student body of JHMS is similar to that of my class – culturally, racially, nationality, and linguistically diverse. It is an enormous asset to the school, and many teachers make sure that diversity is celebrated and a vibrant part of the fabric of their classroom. JHMS is also 100% free lunch for students, as the majority of students come from impoverished households.
One aspect of JHMS that may stand out to a stranger is their positive behavioral management technique. JHMS uses an approach to behavioral management to create a culture of Self control (S), Taking responsibility for one’s behavior (T), Actively listening (A), and Respecting everyone (R). This STAR model is engrained in students from their first years at Jacob Hiatt through a reward system. Students who are seen following these expectations (which may have differentiated levels of positive behavior) are given a hole-punch (a “click”) on their STAR card, a special yellow index card. At the end of each week, students with full star cards can pull a reward from the reward box ranging anywhere from using a pen instead of a pencil to a positive phone call home. Popular rewards in my class were “You get to do a class read aloud” and “Lunch with the teacher.”
I am not sure how this model works in the higher grades, but in the younger grades, creating a sense of community as a foundation to positive behavior is very effective. That being said, I think there is space to improve on this model to make more explicit the values that are foundational to the actions which STAR stands for. When I ask students to use “self control” it’s because we are trying to create a safe classroom, one that is filled with kindness, and one where my students have some self-awareness. If these values (and more) were instilled on a classoom and school-wide level, I wonder what sort of conversations could happen around what kindness, respect, and holding each other accountable could look like.
One last very important aspect of Jacob Hiatt is the support for English Language Learners. Because Worcester has such a high population of immigrants, there are often many ELLs in a classroom, which need additional support so they can reach their highest potential. Although there are only two ELL specialists at JHMS, they have a very organized and consistent way of seeing each student who needs services and really value their thoughtful pedagogy.