Delighted—Not Surprised Mrs. Thackrey says she was “delighted but

Delighted—Not Surprised

Mrs. Thackrey says she was “delighted but not surprised” that, George Mason was chosen as a model school by the president’s commission. “We’re so proud of so many things,” she said, when asked to name the school’s most outstanding assets. But if pressed, she had to name the quality of the faculty at the “most spectacular middle school” and the arrangement between the high school and Arlington Career Center for vocational education.

Grades 7-8 are usually the “step children” of a school system’s curriculum planning, says Mrs. Thackrey but not at George Mason Middle School. Furthermore, the 6th grade teaching team recently won the Washington Post’s faculty of the year award.

The community continues to support excellence through taxes, volunteer help and by backing up the staff and its programs. Citizens continue to serve effectively oq a wide variety of advisory; committees which study wftrs to do even better in th< i areas of gifted and talented special ed, day care, vocational education, reading ihd even getting education! j enabling legis- lation t rough the General Asseml y. Thackrey added that thq Booster Club is also a group of “extremely cooperative parents.”

Dr. Thoms says that the record j of community involvement

places an extra burden bn the school staff to be theit best. “We like innovating, doing things different, being special. And we have U be or we might as well b< part of the rest of them.”' If the city citizens hadn’t thought they could be better, they could have remained with the county schools or even bought educatiomj'services, he said.

Hoife-School Contact

In iioat things the school does, community family is considered. Every home gets it least four calls a year, Thoms says, mostly to say their kid is doing well. “Most [kids are ok,” he says.