Change to magnet school gives teachers chance to teach students differently
Published in the Feb. 19 – March 4, 2014 issue of Morgan Hill Life
By Colby Dale
Photo by Marty Cheek
Jackson Academy Principal Patrick Buchser with students during the 2012 Music Fest.
In its second year as a magnet school, Jackson Academy of Math and Music has developed a reputation in Morgan Hill as a unique educational environment where all students learn through the stimulating power of music.
Jackson Academy, located on Fountain Oaks Drive in southeast Morgan Hill, includes grades kindergarten to eighth. Second-grade teacher Beverly Jensen started working there when it became the Morgan Hill Unified School District’s first academy. She said the school is unique because it focuses on different types of teaching styles and experiences using music and math to enhance the education of its students.
“Personally, I really believe there’s a huge connection between math and music in terms of the side of the brain that both of these disciplines use,” she said. “Our full-time music teacher Amanda Knutsen is just awesome and she really sticks to the standards of what children need to learn at each grade level. She makes it very interactive, very fun.”
Jensen said that her overall experience at Jackson has been a positive one, but last school year was difficult because everyone needed to adjust to the new style of learning music and math as a base.
“It’s always hard taking a school and sort of reprogramming it and bringing in new staff and new students and sort of mixing up the whole thing,” she said. “We did have a lot of challenges last year, but it seems like this year is going a lot better. Parents seem happy, students seem happy, teachers seem happy, so I think we’ve all learned to get along and appreciate each other’s strengths.”
Principal Patrick Buchser is the “captain of the ship” at Jackson, Jensen said, because he has been a real leader in the transition from the old elementary school, which had academic problems, to the new academy which was inaugurated in August 2012. The academy kicked off that month with a music festival where a Dixieland band, a mariachi band, the Live Oak and Sobrato high school bands and South Valley Symphony performers introduced the students to the joy of musical expression.
Jackson Academy got its start after a community survey was done that found people wanted a kindergarten through eighth grade school with a focus on math and music, Buchser said. The shift in the school’s approach to students learning through music and mathematics gives teachers the opportunity to do things strategically different at Jackson and build a positive school campus environment, he said.
“It’s a blessing to work with an amazing staff on a common vision and a strong passion to teach kids with relevancy and ‘on purpose’ adult actions,” he said. “Teaching the learner and the learning is an absolute joy and it’s beautiful to watch the children respond and their thinking grow. Teaching kids music and giving them a lifetime of memories is amazing. Giving kids the opportunity to see the world in a different perspective is priceless.”
Sixth-grade student Mia Kantern likes Jackson Academy because it reinforces learning through math and music activities.
Her favorite part about Jackson is the music, she said.
“Music is the glue that holds my family together,” she said,. “So if I an get a better hold on music, I will stick to the glue.”
Colby Dale is a sixth-grader in Kathy Carroll’s class at Jackson Academy. He plays the alto saxophone and likes jazz, hip-hop, 1980s rock and pretty much all music. Publisher Marty Cheek helped Dale write this story.
FUN FACTS
Number of students: 576
Number of teachers: 19
Number of academic years as a magnate school: 2
Number of students in band: More than 180
Number of violin students in kindergarten and first grade: 120
2014 date of spring musical performance open to the public: May 30
