For full disclosure from the start, my wife is a teacher at MUMS, with 20+ years of service and dedication; I am a former middle school teacher; and my daughter will be in the first sixth-grade class to attend MUMS if the move goes through as currently planned. I cannot state strongly enough how ill-planned that move is, and how detrimental it will be, particularly at this moment in time, without adequate resources provided to ensure its success. 
In the 11/5/20 “MUMS readies for 6th-graders,” John Flowers correctly notes that the Version 2.0 plan was scuttled last spring. The same night it was presented to the ACSD board, a large contingent of MUMS teachers attended to oppose the plan for its many flaws, not just a “potential” loss of instructional time. That plan was predicated on no increase in staff or space, despite adding approximately 120 students to MUMS. Those two criteria were described as “non-negotiables,” which makes as much sense as adding 120 students while saying “We won’t use any additional water.” 
While the revised proposal, described as Version 3.0, includes a staffing increase of 2.5 FTE for music and languages, it also includes cutting a team, from 4 to 3. There is a misperception in the community that sixth-grade teachers would be coming to MUMS as well, but that is incorrect. Teams would increase in size from approximately 65 to 120. This is a team in name only. The reason for the success of MUMS in the past has been due to the quality of the teachers and instruction. The small size of the teams has contributed to this success, as teachers have time to get to know each student individually. Greatly increasing the size of the teams will result in less personalized learning, less time to provide individual feedback, and less of a connection between students and teachers. 
I am normally a fan of looping for two years to provide continuity of learning and stronger connections between students and teachers. However, nearly doubling the size of teams, and looping from sixth to seventh grade may have the unintended consequence of decreasing the quality of instruction because those teachers would have twice the number of students they currently do, while needing to develop and maintain two years worth of curriculum. 
Version 3.0 should more accurately be described as a return to a junior high model, with six classes a day lasting 49 minutes, as opposed to the middle school model that has been the foundation of MUMS’s success in the past. That 49-minute class period represents not a “potential” loss of instructional time, but a significant loss of time. When you combine it with flexible scheduling on Wednesdays, that is a massive loss of instructional time in the core classes. And let me point out here that I am in favor of flexible Wednesdays and the interdisciplinary studies and community connections that they might foster, but we need to recognize that there will be a corresponding reduction in instructional time across all other subjects. 
The “waterfall schedule” mentioned in the article may have the purported benefit of staggering what time classes are held, so that a student’s math class, for example, is not always first thing in the morning, or right after lunch, which are usually less productive times, but it has the practical effect of being logistically difficult to maintain, as well as being confusing for students to follow. 
Nowhere in the article does it mention another issue: classrooms. Given the 50% increase in student body, it is more than likely that teachers will need to share rooms, and that some teachers may be moving from room to room throughout the day. This may not sound like much to an outsider, but think of a classroom as a nest for both students and teachers alike.  
Last, but not least, another absence in the article itself points out a glaring omission: the voices of teachers. Nowhere is a teacher’s opinion on the plan noted in the article, and their voices have been consistently ignored in the planning, as evidenced by the need for a large contingent to show up to ensure that Version 2.0 was defeated last spring. The faculty and staff of ACSD are stretched unimaginably thin right now trying to teach both in-person and remote students, and the plan to move the sixth grade to MUMS has not received the attention nor the resources to be successful. 
I believe that sixth-graders are developmentally ready to be in a 6-8 middle school, but I believe we need to give them and their teachers everything they need to be successful. For that reason, we need more discussion in the community, and with teachers, before making the move.
Kurt Broderson
Middlebury