During the years of Mr. High, many changes occurred at Crockett Middle School. The school was selected by the Texas Education Agency for the Partnership Schools Initiative (PSI). As a PSI school, Crockett had the freedom and additional resources to try new strategies to improve the way students learn.
The school day changed from a 7-period to an 8-period day. This change gave the students choices of two electives instead of one. The elective that was added for the 7th grade was Spanish I, which is 1/2 of a high school credit. The elective that was added for 6th grade was keyboarding. "I feel that was a good move and really helped students become more well-rounded and helped them go on to the 8th grade and eventually the high school," Mr. High said.
Mr. High also began the tradition of having weekly staff meetings with teacher representatives to help plan school events, get teacher input on important matters, and help school communication. That practice continues today with Staff Council and departmental meetings held on Wednesdays before school.
Other changes have disappeared over the years. In the early 90's Crockett held Report Card Days. On these days (held at the end of the 1st and 4th six weeks) school was dismissed and teachers were on duty for extended hours. Parents came to school to meet with their child's teachers and discuss academic concerns. The policy of Report Card Day was later adopted by Paris ISD as a district-wide strategy but was discontinued during the 2000-2001 school year.
Another strategy begun during High's tenure was academic teaming. Under this concept, students were assigned to one of two teams per grade level. Students on the same team would have the same math, reading, language arts, science, and social studies teachers, and those teachers would share a common planning period to discuss student performance and plan team events. Scheduling problems eventually forced the school to abandon academic teaming by the 1998-1999 school year.
Students during a Spanish class.