Welcome to Albert D. Lawton Intermediate School. ADL is the home of the Chargers. We house students in grades 6-8 and our enrollment hovers around 350 students. Our feeder school is Thomas Fleming School, which enrolls our district’s fourth and fifth graders. On the other end of the spectrum, all of our ADL students attend Essex High School upon completion of the eighth grade. We operate on a trimester schedule, utlize student-led conferences with families and teachers twice a year, and are professionally focusing on differentiated instruction in the classroom, literacy across the content areas, standards based plannng, assessing and reporting, and technology integration.
ADL operates as a middle school with each student being assigned to a team of educators that includes core teachers, a special educator and 1-2 instructional assistants. This year our sixth grade team has split into two smaller teams. Each team teaches science, mathematics (Connected Math Program), social studies, and language arts. Both teams will combine social studies and language arts into a humanities study as much as possible. For our 7th and 8th graders, ADL has moved into two teaming formats that enables students and teachers to form two year relationships. One structure is a looping format. Students are either placed on a team with all seventh graders and will loop up to eighth grade with the same teachers (Team Alchemy), or they are eighth graders who will remain with teachers with whom they were placed in 7th grade (Team Nova). Both teams are comprised of four teachers who teach mathematics, science, social studies and language arts. Our second teaming format is a small multiage team (Team Discovery) consisting of two teachers, one of whom is certified to teach language arts and social studies and the second teacher who is certified to teach math and science. Forty-five to fifty 7th and 8th grade students are assigned to this team.
All 6th, 7th and 8th graders have PE or health every day. Students also rotate through our unifed arts classes (family and consumer science, art and music). This group of teachers has worked consistently over the last few years to build a program that connects their three disciplines. Students travel to their UA classes in different increments of time that eventually add up to 9 weeks in each unified arts class.
Additionally, all three grade levels participate in foreign lnaguages. Our 6th graders experience a half a year each of French and Spanish for a short, introductory class. As 7th and 8th graders, students choose which language they want to continue to study for the remainder of their time at ADL. 7th and 8th grade classes meet daily and upon successful completion of the 8th grade curriculum are eligible to take French or Spanish II or III at Essex High School.
A unique feature to ADL’s schedule is our activity period, which takes place right after homeroom. All students who wish to participate in band, chorus and/or orchestra travel to the music wing to practice together every day from 8:05-8:35. Students who are not in band, chorus or orchestra read independently, receive extra support from teachers in their academics, or participate in our Peer Leadership steering committee or Kids Against Tobacco program.
We also offer students many extracurricular activities that range from a variety of interscholastic and intramural sports to computer games, knitting, yearbook, art club, chess/checkers, Geo Bee, Math Counts, jazz band, handbells, advanced band, select chorus, school musical and many more.
If you have questions or would like to visit ADL, please call us at 878-1388.
Laurie Singer, Principal
Last updated: Apr 25, 2013 at 9:39 am
