Strengthening Middle Schools by Cost-Effectively Rethinking Teaming and Staffing

Written By David James
 

This article is part of the series, “Designing Middle Schools for a New Generation: What Central Office Leaders Need to Know,” which shares what central office leaders need to know to build on the strengths of the traditional middle school model to rethink how schools can better support a new generation of young adolescents. Across five posts, we share actionable, research-backed, system-level strategies school and district leaders can implement, strengthening core instruction, broadening opportunities for students, and using time and resources more strategically to boost learning and engagement over the long term.

 
 

Middle schools are uniquely complex organizations to staff and operate. They sit at the intersection of elementary and high school models, often combining departmentalized instruction with small learning communities, exploratory courses, and layered student supports. This complexity makes them among the most challenging and costly schools to run.

In today’s context of declining enrollment, tighter budgets, and rising expectations, many districts are taking a closer look at how middle schools are staffed—not because something is “broken,” but because staffing models designed for a different era may no longer be as flexible or sustainable as they need to be.

The question facing many central office leaders is not whether to support the core principles of the middle school model, but how to preserve those principles while making staffing more adaptable to current realities.

Why Middle School Staffing Is Especially Challenging

Traditional middle school staffing models are built around interdisciplinary teaming, where core teachers teach one subject and one grade level and work closely with a small group of colleagues and students. This structure has clear benefits for teacher collaboration and supporting students.

At the same time, a traditional teaming model does not fit all middle schools equally. For example, a middle school with 100 students in 6th grade can efficiently staff four core teachers and create classes of 25 students. If a school has 85 students in 6th grade, however, the traditional teaming model—which typically restricts teachers to a single subject and grade level—offers few easy adjustments. To maintain traditional teaming models when enrollment does not neatly match teaching workloads, it is common for middle schools to either lower class sizes or hire more staff. Both practices are costly.

Many middle schools effectively spend $200,000 to $800,000 more in staffing than they would under a more flexible model that still preserves the benefits of teaming. Those resources, in turn, are then not available to support electives, academic intervention, or student services.

Preserving Teaming While Increasing Flexibility

Importantly, increasing staffing flexibility does not require abandoning teaming altogether. Many schools are finding ways to retain the relationship- and collaboration-related benefits of teaming while introducing modest adjustments that improve adaptability and lower costs.

Three creative teaming approaches are particularly effective:

  • Multi-Grade Teaming allows some teachers to teach the same subject across more than one grade level. As an example, in a school with 150 students per grade, this would allow one ELA teacher to teach four sections of only 7th grade ELA, and a second ELA teacher to teach two sections of 7th grade ELA and two sections of 8th grade ELA.

  • Multi-Subject Teaming allows some teachers to teach more than one core subject within a grade level. This model is more commonly applied in the 6th grade, where elementary certifications are more flexible.

  • Rainbow Teaming allows some core teachers to teach one subject across multiple teams within the same grade, which helps to balance class sizes and create scheduling options, especially for honors classes, without dismantling team structures.

When the use of these strategies is driven by precisely responding to student enrollment, they can help schools fully eliminate the extra cost of teaming.

Using Teaching Assignments More Intentionally

Another challenge with legacy middle school staffing practices is that middle school teachers often teach a smaller portion of the day than their elementary or high school counterparts. It is most common, for example, to see a middle school core teacher assigned only four classes, even though they contractually could teach five, the same expectation regularly placed on their non-core colleagues in middle school and teachers in high school. This “extra” fifth period for many core teachers is inconsistently used: for supervision duties, to manage a flex block, or sometimes for an additional planning period,. This ad hoc approach leads to hidden inequities and puts further pressure on the middle school staffing model.

Taking a more strategic approach to teachers’ “extra” teaching period can transform it from an undefined use of time into a deliberate lever for school improvement.

When examined carefully and adjusted thoughtfully, teaching assignments can be a powerful way to strengthen programs without adding staff. Schools can do this in three main ways:

  • Expand Instructional Reach: Teachers can be scheduled to teach an additional class in their core subject area, which lowers class sizes or creates new course sections (e.g., an additional math class to serve accelerated students). This ensures more students benefit from certified content-area instruction without requiring new hires.

  • Broaden Student Options: When teachers use the “extra” period to teach electives or exploratory courses, schools can dramatically expand offerings without increasing staff.

  • Targeted Academic Interventions: Instead of scattered hallway duties, teachers can lead structured intervention blocks during the “extra” period. These might include small group math recovery, reading acceleration, or a writing intervention class. This creates built-in capacity for Tier 2 interventions that many schools currently struggle to resource.

Smarter Staffing for the Modern Middle School Context

Bringing flexibility and precision to middle school staffing models can help free up much-needed resources in support of school and district goals such as strengthening core instruction, adding targeted intervention, or expanding the range of engaging electives.

Rethinking staffing in middle school is not about cutting corners or doing more with less. It is about using the talents of staff in ways that are more closely aligned with today’s realities and tomorrow’s needs.

When middle schools strike this balance, they become more responsive and better equipped to serve students well—now and into the future.

 
 

This article is part of the series, “Designing Middle Schools for a New Generation: What Central Office Leaders Need to Know,” which shares what central office leaders need to know to build on the strengths of the traditional middle school model to rethink how schools can better support a new generation of young adolescents.

Check out the other posts in the series here:

 
 

About the Author

David James is a former teacher and middle school administrator who serves as an advisor to school and district leaders. He and his team have helped more than 100 middle schools across the nation better serve a new generation of students and educators. He is co-author of the book, It's Time for Strategic Scheduling: How to Design Smarter K-12 Schedules That Are Great for Students, Staff, and the Budget. He also leads the Secondary Scheduling Academy, an accelerated hands-on training program for school and district leadership teams to enhance capacity for strategic scheduling, build buy-in for changes, and design effective, best practice-aligned schedules that are better for students, teachers, and the budget.

David James

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