Woodstock Union Middle School Named a 2025 School of Distinction by the Association for Middle Level Education
The Mountain Views Supervisory Union (MVSU) announced today that its Woodstock Union Middle School (WUMS) has won recognition as a 2025 School of Distinction by the Association for Middle Level Education (AMLE) – the only middle school in Vermont to land such an honor.
AMLE is the only international organization of its kind for middle school educators. With a community of more than 35,000 members, AMLE is a respected source for peer-reviewed research, best practices, and professional development in middle-level education.
Dr. Jennifer Settle, MVSU’s Director of Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment, led the WUMS team of educators, staff, students, and parents, whose work over the last two years has earned the AMLE award. The team applied learnings from extensive AMLE surveys to generate creative, continuous-improvement initiatives. These initiatives, in turn, have significantly elevated the quality of students’ experiences and their sense of community belonging.
A video produced by Settle and her team that captures the importance of WUMS’ creative approaches to the education of middle-school students can be viewed by clicking here. The video, in addition to extensive program documentation, helped to earn the School of Distinction award on WUMS' first application.
“Two years ago, we contacted AMLE and, working closely with them, began looking through an improvement lens to identify the key characteristics that make a middle school great,” said Settle. “Today, with the benefit of AMLE’s School of Distinction award, we’ve become part of a large, recognized network of high- achieving middle schools that can all reach out, support each other, and drive excellence in middle-school education across the nation.”
The AMLE Schools of Distinction program honors schools that exemplify best practices in middle-level education while guiding them through a strategic, vision-setting process that drives continuous improvement. The program empowers educators to create opportunities that cultivate the potential and possibilities of young adolescents and evaluates schools on their implementation of research-based criteria tailored to students aged 10 to 15.
The AMLE organization has four key objectives:
• Recognizing and celebrating schools that actively implement defined, essential attributes and characteristics of successful middle-grade schools
• Providing all schools that support young adolescents with the resources to support their continuous improvement journeys
• Creating a network of schools that can learn from and support each other, and
• Highlighting for communities nationwide the exceptional work that takes place every day in middle school education.
This year, WUMS and just 23 other middle schools across the United States received the distinguished designation. WUMS will join other 2025 Schools of Distinction at AMLE’s 52nd Annual Conference for Middle Level Education in Indianapolis, Indiana, this November to celebrate their awards.
Ryan Becker, a WUMS 8th-grade science teacher who is also the middle school’s 8th Grade Team Leader, emphasized the importance of middle school educational and community experiences that take place both inside and outside the classroom.
Speaking for his award-winning team, Becker said, “We've worked hard for many years to embody the middle level model, even though we are actually operating within a grades 7-12 building. This award recognizes our deep commitment to middle-level learners, and it celebrates the incredible students, teachers, and families that together make our middle school so special.”
In congratulating the Woodstock Union Middle School on its AMLE School of Distinction award, AMLE Chief Executive Officer, Stephanie Simpson, said that WUMS’s dedication to fostering a thriving middle-school community sets a powerful example – one worthy of sharing with educators worldwide.