JCPS teachers look back at origins of middle schools

Jefferson City Public Schools Superintendent Larry Linthacum attends the JCPS Middle Schools 25th Anniversary Reception on Tuesday at Lewis and Clark Middle School. Current and former students, families and staff members celebrated the event. Lewis and Clark and Thomas Jefferson opened in 1993.
Jefferson City Public Schools Superintendent Larry Linthacum attends the JCPS Middle Schools 25th Anniversary Reception on Tuesday at Lewis and Clark Middle School. Current and former students, families and staff members celebrated the event. Lewis and Clark and Thomas Jefferson opened in 1993.

A lot changed 25 years ago during the school year when Jefferson City Public Schools opened Lewis and Clark and Thomas Jefferson middle schools, but a few people who worked there ever since or returned as teachers after being students there are part of what's not changed.

Linda Tobar said last week that opening day at Lewis and Clark - Sept. 7, 1993 - was her "favorite first day of school ever." Tobar has been teaching at Lewis and Clark ever since, and is a seventh-grade science teacher.

A lot of the reason Tobar thought fondly of that first day for what was then a new educational system for JCPS was because of a problem that happened.

A squirrel got into an electrical substation on St. Louis Road and triggered a blackout that affected Lewis and Clark and Simonsen 9th Grade Center from about 7:55-8:55 a.m.

"Lewis and Clark students, faculty and staff didn't miss a beat with power and phone service out, and started school on time at 8:10 a.m.," according to the News Tribune's afternoon report from that day.

"Sunlight, emergency exit lights and a few staff-supplied flashlights lit dark hallways and classrooms. One teacher even took advantage of an open area on the second level lit by the sun and held class on the floor," former News Tribune reporter Mike Flanagan wrote.

Tobar said the experience forced people to hang out and get to know each other for a while, which was good given that "every person in this building was new."

Before JCPS' two middle schools opened in September 1993, the district's sixth-graders attended at their elementary schools. Seventh-graders went to Jefferson Junior High in the building that's now home to Jefferson City Academic Center. Eighth-graders attended what's now Simonsen 9th Grade Center.

It took a voter-approved bond issue, then worth $24.5 million, and a 42-cent operating tax levy increase to build the two middle schools and finance other projects in the district.

Pre-election mailer material from the local "People for Education Progress" - which described itself as a volunteer organization that raised money from private sources throughout the community - cited concerns across the school district about overcrowding, the quick succession of transitions from one building to another in grades 6-8, and inadequate academic programs and facilities as reasons for the voters to approve of the bond issue and tax increase.

The move to a middle school model also allowed JCPS to have self-contained elementary classrooms with one teacher for basic subjects, such as math, English, social studies and science.

"It was kind of a really big deal," Amber Vieth remembered about being a fifth-grader at North Elementary School and being prepped for the transition to the new concept of a middle school. Vieth is now a sixth-grade math teacher at Lewis and Clark, and said she can still "point to my locker from my classroom."

Along with the new students, the News Tribune reported at the time that with the advent of the middle schools, about 150 teachers would teach in different locations than the year before, and the district would have 38 new teachers, one new counselor and one new administrator to accommodate the changes - along with six custodians, a maintenance worker, part-time nurse and three secretarial positions to be filled.

Tobar said she chose to work at Lewis and Clark, but did not choose which grade she would work with; she had always intended to teach high school students, which she did in Sedalia, where she started as a teacher.

"I never planned to stay this long," she said - and she is retiring this year.

At Thomas Jefferson, Jody Thomas has also been there from the start. Thomas Jefferson didn't experience the power outage that Lewis and Clark did on its first day, but Thomas' start of the school year was also eventful - after two weeks on the job, she gave birth to her daughter, Elizabeth Rustemeyer, who also now teaches at Thomas Jefferson.

Thomas is a sixth-grade social studies teacher, and Rustemeyer teaches seventh-grade social studies. Rustemeyer attended Thomas Jefferson - and did have her mom as a teacher; "I always called her 'mom'" after attending Lawson Elementary School.

"We're just both very blessed to work together," Thomas said.

"It's a hard bar to live up to," Rustemeyer said, but added the students of her mom's that go on to her classroom do respect her more because of it.

"I think it was the teaming," Thomas recalled of what made the new concept of middle school work when the district made the transition to it.

Then, as now, students are divided up into teams and a small group of teachers share the students for their core subject classes. Tobar said 100-120 students per team have their core classes taught by four or five teachers at Lewis and Clark.

"We all work together on the same group of kids" and focus on a child through coordination, Thomas said.

Thomas recalled that teaming gave parents one teacher as a point of contact, and parents could call during team teacher meetings.

"It worked a lot like elementary school," she said, and credited it for helping to ensure the switch to the middle school model wasn't a traumatic change.

"Everybody was nervous about 'middle school,'" Thomas remembered, but students did not change classes on the first day, so teachers could get to know their students, she said.

"You're just trying to figure out life," Rustemeyer said of middle school students - wanting to be independent one day and needing an adult the next, which she enjoys as part of her job - and so it means a lot to make memories that students can look back on.

Tobar and Thomas have been in their same classrooms for the duration of their careers so far.

Thomas said she's not retiring just yet - "What else would I do?" if not teach. She said she's bewildered some days she gets paid to have so much fun.

JCPS is celebrating the 25th anniversaries of the first years of Lewis and Clark and Thomas Jefferson with evening receptions. Lewis and Clark's was last week, but Thomas Jefferson's is at 4:30 p.m. Thursday in the school's cafeteria.

A brief program at the start will be followed by a ribbon cutting, and then self-guided tours, refreshments and viewing memorabilia will be open until 6:30 p.m.