Voices: Utah overlooks its middle school students. Here’s what teachers like me need from our lawmakers.

Most education debates in Utah revolve around two bookends: the charm of early literacy and the promise of college-and-career readiness. Far less attention is paid to what happens in the middle, literally.

Middle school.

As a teacher, I see every day what research confirms: These are the years when academic paths harden, motivation shifts and small gaps widen into chasms. And yet Utah continues to overlook the grades where the greatest change — and the greatest loss — occurs.

State policy rightly emphasizes K–3 literacy and high school pathways, but grades six through eight remain largely ignored. Middle school is treated like an awkward waiting room between childhood and adolescence instead of the make-or-break academic years it truly is. If Utah wants lasting academic gains, this is where attention and investment must shift.

Nowhere is that urgency clearer than in math and reading readiness. The steepest skill divergence often occurs between fifth and eighth grade. As a special education teacher on the west side, I work with sixth graders who are three or more grade levels behind. Some have identified disabilities, while others have slipped through the cracks long before they reached my classroom. Once students enter middle school significantly behind, they rarely catch up without targeted, consistent intervention. The window that opened in early elementary school quietly closes.

Teaching middle school is uniquely demanding. Not because of stereotypes, but because we are teaching students during one of the most intense periods of brain development. In a single classroom, students may range from decoding at a second-grade level to analyzing text at grade level. In my Tier 3 reading class alone, students span Levels 2–6, despite being the same age. Tier 1 instruction is what all students receive in the classroom, Tier 2 provides extra support for some students and Tier 3 delivers intensive, individualized instruction for a few. That means I may have students reading chapter books sitting beside students practicing sight words, all at once. This level of range requires skill, structure and staffing that middle school educators are rarely given.

Elementary schools often have literacy coaches, interventionists and built-in support systems. High schools have counselors, electives and clearer academic pathways. In the middle grades, teachers are expected to do it all with fewer specialists, less institutional focus and often not enough adults in the building to intervene in ways that make a real difference.

Attendance compounds the problem. Chronic absenteeism spikes sharply after fifth grade. A little independence can push students toward responsibility — or avoidance. I see students miss a day, then two, then a week. By the time patterns are recognized, the academic and emotional distance can feel nearly impossible to bridge. Middle school is where motivation often unravels quietly, long before high school teachers ever meet these students.

We need to stop pretending these years are just a bridge between “the important parts.” Middle school is the part that determines everything else. Algebra readiness begins in sixth and seventh grade. Reading comprehension either strengthens or plateaus here. Executive functioning — including organization, persistence and time management — solidifies or collapses in these years. Students who lose their sense of belonging or success in middle school rarely regain it later.

The solutions are not mysterious; they are simply undervalued. Utah could require consistent intervention blocks in middle schools, as many elementary schools already do. The state could fund smaller class sizes in core subjects where gaps widen fastest, especially math. Districts could invest in additional math interventionists and paraeducators, and protect time in the school day for skill-based support. These are preventative measures, not experimental programs.

Middle school is not a hallway between elementary and high school; it is the engine room of Utah’s academic future. As lawmakers enter the upcoming legislative session, the focus must shift to where academic trajectories harden: grades six through eight.

Utah can no longer afford to overlook the middle. Investing in early, targeted math intervention in the middle grades is one of the most fiscally responsible steps the state can take to raise achievement, narrow gaps, and ensure students are truly prepared for what comes next.

Lindsey Larsen is a middle school special educator in Utah with experience teaching reading and math.

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