Mt. Pleasant Middle School

Mt. Pleasant Middle School is a public middle school in Livingston, in Essex County, New Jersey, as part of the Livingston Public Schools. It serves students in sixth grade and it is the only public school in Livingston for sixth grade students. All of the 6 elementary schools of livingston join together. Mt. Pleasant Middle School is sometime dubbed as an "all sixth grade school".^[2] After graduation, the students continue to Heritage Middle School for seventh grade and eighth grade, then transfer to livingston high school for their four remaining years.

As of the 2007-08 school year, the school had an enrollment of 470 and 41 classroom teachers (on a FTE basis), for a student-teacher ratio of 11.5.^[1]

Curriculum

Students in Mt. Pleasant Middle School are divided into teams. Teams consist of courses in integrated reading and language arts, mathematics, science, social studies, and the cycle courses. The cycle courses include art, family and consumer science, integrated business applications, technology education, Spanish or French, and general music. The last period is called advisory and support period to provide students with opportunities to participate in advisory activities, elective music courses (band, orchestra and chorus), and school-wide enrichment activities.^[2] The school-wide enrichment is part of the gifted and talented program which includes offerings on Academically Speaking – county competition on knowledge of almost all subjects, Knowledge Master Open, National Talent Network's Cognetics program – program to challenge students to solve problems and present their solutions, New Jersey State Bar Foundation's Law Fair program, and debate. ^[3]

Additionally, the school offers after-school co-curricular program that includes intramural sports, student council, and dramatic productions.

Awards and recognition

Mt. Pleasant Middle School was listed in Knowledge Master Open Hall of Fame for the United States champion of March 2007 6th grade KMO.^[4]

The school also participates in other competitions at county, state and national levels. Furthermore, students formed teams to compete in extracurricular competitions. Recent accomplishments include:^[5]

• Ranked #2 out of 204 schools in 6th grade New Jersey Mathematics League contest^[6]
• Ranked #2 in Northern New Jersey region in 2009 New Jersey Science Olympiad^[7]
• Four Mount Pleasant Middle School teams earned Silver Toward Satori, the highest level in the National Talent Network’s Cognetics Program for problem solving organized by Educational Resource Information and Resource Center (ERIC).
• First place winner in Essex County Environmental Center poster contest
• Honorable Mention in grade 6 category of 2009 New Jersey State Bar Foundation's Law Fair^[8]
• In 2007, Landroids – a team of six Mt. Pleasant Middle School students and one student from Morris Plains – won Champion’s Award in 2007 New Jersey State Tournament for FIRST LEGO League, a robotics competition.^[9][10] The team also won 3rd Place Robot Performance Award in FIRST LEGO League World Festival in April 2008.^[11]

Administration

• Debra Ostrowski, Principal
• Andrew Espinoza, Assistant Principal

Building & Facilities

Mt. Pleasant Middle School is co-located with Mt. Pleasant Elementary School with some shared facilities. The school building and fields are used after school hours for other activities such as soccer tournaments,^[12] and Children's Theatre of Livingston.^[13] Livingston Huaxia Chinese School – a weekend Chinese language school – is also located at Mt. Pleasant Middle School.

References

External links

• School website

Coordinates: 40°47′47″N 74°18′11″W / 40.796332°N 74.303159°W / 40.796332; -74.303159