38°57′5.16″N 77°11′29.81″W / 38.9514333°N 77.1916139°W / 38.9514333; -77.1916139
James Fenimore Cooper Middle School (Cluster: 1; Grades: 7-8, website), in McLean, is a public school established in 1962 and named after the author James Fenimore Cooper. The school's principal is Arlene Randall. Most students go on to attend Langley High School while a minority are accepted to Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria.
Cooper serves the communities of McLean and Great Falls as well as certain parts of Vienna, Reston and Herndon. Feeder schools include Great Falls, Forestville, Colvin Run, Churchill Road, Spring Hill and Franklin Sherman Elementary.
The school day begins at 7:40 AM and ends at 2:30 PM.
Books-A-Million has a business partnership with the school, having given its books for the school's book fair.
The school offers a partial-Japanese language immersion program for those who have taken the language in elementary school. Another program at Cooper is Mobile Team Challenge, an experiential team-building low ropes course designed to support the learning and emotional environment for the students.
Eighth graders have access to such electives as Journalism, Technology Education, Foreign Language, Music, Art, Drama, Tech Tools, Family and Consumer Sciences, and Special Education.
Seventh graders have access to some of the above.
There are three bands in Cooper; Cadet band, Concert band, and the most highest Symphonic band. The symphonic band usually eighth graders goes on overnight trips to other states or some times, overseas. In the 2010-11 school year, they went to Orlando, FL to Disney for four days and three nights. The Concert band usually goes to Hershey park. The orchestra and choir are divided the same.
Cooper Middle School's newspaper, The Hawkeye, was first published in 1962 and as of 2010, has made the transition to a News-magazine. The Hawkeye is written by Cooper's 150+ Journalism students. The magazine is edited and designed by an Advanced Journalism class which also designs the Pathfinder, Cooper's Award Winning Yearbook, and the Glimmerglass, Cooper's Literary Magazine.
Teams are organized by grade like high school sub-schools. The school has three eighth grade teams (Avalanche, Team Fusion, Tornadoes) and three seventh grade teams (Galaxy, Comets and the Super Novas). In the school year 2011-12, they had changed the team names to 8th grade (Voyagers, Apollo, Vikings).
Read more about this topic: Robert Frost Middle School (Fairfax County, Virginia)
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“I suppose one has a greater sense of intellectual degradation after an interview with a doctor than from any human experience.”
—Alice James (1848–1892)
“Slavery is no more sinful, by the Christian code, than it is sinful to wear a whole coat, while another is in tatters, to eat a better meal than a neighbor, or otherwise to enjoy ease and plenty, while our fellow creatures are suffering and in want.”
—James Fenimore Cooper (1789–1851)
“Regularity and Decorum. ‘Tis what we women-authors, in particular, have been thought greatly deficient in; and I should be concerned to find it an objection not to be removed.”
—Elizabeth Cooper (fl. 1730s)
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so wear me threadbare....”
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“And Guidobaldo, when he made
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Where wit and beauty learned their trade
Upon Urbino’s windy hill,
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—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)