Lincoln Middle School (Gainesville, Florida)

Lincoln Middle School, located in Gainesville, Florida, was first founded as a high school. It was soon closed and reopened after a decade and converted into a middle school. Lincoln Middle School belongs to Alachua County Public Schools and is most notable for its "Lyceum" Magnet program.

The Lyceum Program

This program designed to help students attend IB Diploma Program at Eastside High School. To attend the Lyceum program, students must apply with a filled out entrance form, an essay if their F-CAT Writing was not high enough, and a portfolio of their recent Report Cards. Those with a high work ethic, good academic records and excellent test scores are accepted into the program. The students take accelerated academic classes and generally a course level higher than the rest of the students in their grade level.

In the eighth grade, students are required to take a foreign language (either French or Spanish). The classes in sixth and seventh grade are math (various levels ranging from Advanced Math to Algebra II), Physical and Life science, Social Studies, Language Arts, Creative Writing (7th grade only), Humanities(6th grade only), and an elective. In eighth grade, Humanities is merged into Language Arts and the foreign language class is added.

Elective Classes

The school has a variety of elective classes. The choices are band and orchestra, home ec,art, family and consumer science, physical education, television, and being a teacher's aide such as media aide tech aide and office aide.

*The school's instrumental music program is notable for being invited to New York City and Washington, D.C. for the last week of the 2005-2006 academic school year to perform. The band and orchestra were also invited to perform in a national adjudicator's invitational in Charleston the end of the 2006-2007 school year (in which they got a "Superior" rating). All of this was done under the direction of David N. Olsen, and it was under his direction that the program grew to be widely considered the most talented middle school program in the state. Recently the school's full orchestra program under the direction of Todd Eckstein was awarded superior markings at the Central Florida Orchestra Music Performance Assessment
*The chorus program attends and competes in district and state singing competitions and comes back with many low scores. The program was cut in 2007 due to funding issues.
*The drama program has twenty five annual performances and competes in both the district and state Junior Thespian drama competition. This program was also cut in 2007.

Administration

The school is currently under the administration of Don Lewis, the principal, and Mr. Gamble, the assistant principal. They joined the school in the beginning of the 2005-2006 school year.

Special Accomplishments

The program strives for excellence in all areas. However, recently both the Math and Science departments have rejoiced with students over their successes in competitions. Students from Lincoln are involved in Mu Alpha Theta (the high school math competition)led by Ms. Byrd, and Math Counts (the middle school math competition). Nine students represented LMS at the Florida State Science and Engineering Fair. All but two students received honors. The Lincoln Bulldog Science Bowl team competed in Cocoa, Fl. They were undefeated and will represent the Florida/Georgia area in the National Middle School Bowl in Golden, Colorado.

External links

* [http://www.sbac.edu/~lms/ Lincoln Middle School Website]
* [http://www.sbac.edu/~lmsimp/ Lincoln Middle School Instrumental Music Program Website]
* [http://www.sbac.edu/~music/ Alachua County School's Music Website]