City High Middle School is a school for highly motivated and academically talented students. City is located on the Northeast side of Grand Rapids and is a Public School of Choice in the Grand Rapids Public School District. In-district students have priority for available openings at the school. Students from other school districts are welcome to apply through ‘School of Choice’ with a release from their home district.

City’s humanities curriculum (which includes art, music, literature, and history) is interdisciplinary and sequential, and differs significantly from curricular offerings in other secondary schools. Consequently, students should plan on remaining through graduation, as long as they maintain high academic standards.

What makes City different?

City prides itself on being an innovative school for academically talented and highly motivated students offering a rigorous interdisciplinary, college preparatory, science, and technology curriculum. Students are expected to take an active part in their own learning, as well as to make decisions for themselves and for the school. Students play a decisive role in determining the direction of their education. City is a community of learners: students, staff and parents together contribute to this community. Students at City are not afraid of controversy, multiple points of view, or viewpoints with which they may not personally agree. Students are encouraged to explore and discuss new ideas, and create forums to address various issues. City’s curriculum is multicultural and internationally minded as we move toward becoming an authorized International Baccalaureate World School. Students are expected to care for themselves, care for each other, and care for their school and their school community.

The City High Middle school community is committed to personal growth, academic achievement and community involvement. City is an environment for innovative education marked by a distinctive style that emphasizes student-centered learning, inquiry, and personal commitment in a cooperative environment. The program further articulates its goals and purpose as being:

• To develop and reinforce strong academic skills by requiring students to follow a rigorous global curriculum.
• To inspire students to seek learning opportunities outside the usual classroom setting.
• To establish and foster career awareness and skills by providing an internship program wherein students work side-by-side with business and community professionals.
• To encourage a sense of responsibility by requiring that all students perform community service, designed to improve the greater Grand Rapids area.

Our goal at City is to help students develop the tools, skills, and habits of mind to thrive as participating members of communities and create a more sustainable future for all the world’s inhabitants.

Our children are growing up in an ever-evolving, increasingly-interconnected, and interdependent world. At City, we strive to bridge the gaps between our stated values and aspirations in order to realize a more sustainable world.

The entire City community is dedicated to identifying, understanding, and bridging these gaps with a holistic approach to humanities, science, and technology education. Our curriculum explores how daily life decisions, practices, and policies have immediate and long-term effects that ripple throughout our community and our world.

As a center of Economicology and as an International Baccalaureate candidate school for the Middle Years Programme we are striving to engage students, teachers and staff to act locally by thinking globally and by encouraging cooperation, collaboration, and compassion throughout the school community. Our transdisciplinary curriculum engages students while maintaining high academic and social expectations. This engagement with real-world problem-solving, inspires fearlessness, open-mindedness, creativity and hope.

This is the learning community of City High Middle School.