Middle School Academics

The Manasquan Middle School Mathematics Department provides for students with varied academic interests and learning styles. The department works to enable each student to reach his or her potential in a supportive, academically rich environment. It is our belief that students will reach their potential in mathematics by utilizing critical thinking skills, engaging in discovery activities, and developing connections among topics. The mathematics curriculum is aligned to the New Jersey Core Curriculum Content Standards and ensures that each student is prepared to meet the challenges at the next level.

The department employs technology in the classroom with the use of interactive whiteboards, calculators and an array of software. Students benefit from our state of the art classrooms which allow instructors to teach dynamic lessons whcih create diverse learning opportunities.

Supervisor of Mathematics and Science
Mr. Craig Murin

Faculty

Carrie Eastmond
Jestine Jones
Andrew Manser
Marc Reid

The Manasquan Elementary School Science Department believes that an effective student-centered science program includes an approach to learning that engages students physically and mentally in an inquiry-based laboratory program. The major goal of the program is to develop substantive science literacy in all students. The program must provide students with opportunities to expand, change, enhance, and modify the ways in which they view the world.

We provide an environment that promotes students' thinking, honesty, curiosity, and questioning. Students should be empowered to express and share points of view, solve problems, and make decisions based on evidence.

As a human endeavor, science seeks to provide an explanation of phenomena occurring in the natural world. This endeavor utilizes two major components: scientific inquiry and scientific knowledge.

• Scientific inquiry is made up of the procedures used to generate scientific knowledge and is grounded in sound cognitive, manipulative, and investigative processes.
• Scientific knowledge represents the laws, principles, theories, concepts, and data that the scientific community recognizes as the most accurate and useful.

Science questions all things, rejects the labeling of statements as unalterable, and opens itself to continual scrutiny and modification. It is a creative process, which attempts to discover and understand. An ideal setting for discovery includes hands-on activities that provide for the active involvement of students. Science is a never-ending process of discovery, interpretation, and evaluation.

Our curriculum provides a flexible program for the acquisition of knowledge and utilization of the scientific processes appropriate to the level of the student. The science curriculum and instruction presented to students in science classes need to be differentiated to provide appropriate rigor and challenge for all learners. The essential curriculum identifies the core that all students are to learn.

The Manasquan Elementary School science program is closely aligned with the New Jersey Student Learning Standards and the Next Generation Science Standards for 6-8 grades.  STEM initiatives (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) are presented to students at every grade level.  Middle school science courses are designed to prepare students to meet with success on state assessments and in their high school science classes. 

Supervisor of Mathematics and Science
Mr. Craig Murin

Faculty

Rob Markovitch
Laura Jensen

Language Arts Literacy is the foundation of all learning.  To succeed in learning within any area, students must know and be able to use the basic elements of Language Arts Literacy.  These fundamentals will interact with and contribute to the students' abilities to think critically, formulate meaning, and solve problems.

It is the intent of our school's administration and instructional staff to prepare our students to effectively use language as the primary tool of thought and communication through their studies.  Additionally, the students will be able to understand literature as the verbal expression of the human imagination and as a transmitter of culture and values.  They will engage in fluent, appropriate speech and writing.  Learning experiences and the utilization of technology will enable them to analyze, classify, compare, formulate hypothesis, make inferences, draw conclusions, and solve problems both rationally and intuitively.

Through the implementation of this curriculum, which adheres to the New Jersey Learning Standards, students will:

1.  Actively read, listen to, view, and interact with materials that are diverse in content and form.
2. Compose texts that are varying in content and form for different audiences and purposes.
3. Speak and actively listen for a variety of situations.
4. View, understand, and use non-textual visual information and representations for critical comparison, analysis, and evaluation.
5. Understand and apply the integration of reading, writing, listening, speaking and viewing to support comprehension, and effective communications.
6. Acquire the habits of inquiry necessary to become thinkers and learners.

Through the pursuit of this vision, students will develop a love for the written word.  In preparing students for the future, students will read for learning and pleasure, write for meaning, and communicate for purpose and understanding.

Supervisor of English and Social Studies
Mr. Rick Coppola

Faculty

Michael Pape
Juliana Rieth
Andrea Trischitta
Kimberly Ward

The Manasquan Middle School Social Studies Department believes that our students should be prepared to be productive and participatory citizens of America and the world.  To that end the Social Studies Department offers a most comprehensive and challenging array of experiences in both History and the Social Sciences in grades six through eight.  The courses are taught by experienced and highly qualified staff that are also highly capable.   Topics covered range from Ancient civilizations through the development of the modern American experience.  

Supervisor of English and Social Studies
Mr. Rick Coppola

Faculty

Kristine Pierce
Thomas Russoniello