It's like office hours - not forced. Kids can pick certain days and teachers will arrange to help them. The six teams at TMMS are small and each team is able to customize the curriculum and instruction to meet the needs of the students on the team. Students stay with their same teachers for both their 7th and 8th grade years. This ensures that teachers know students well and understand the students' diverse and changing needs.
Teams also provide adaptations in assessment depending on the needs and strengths of the students.
For example, one team emphasizes portfolio assessment. Students have a reading response portfolio and a Best Effort portfolio which they share during a family portfolio night. Students who typically don't do well in traditional kinds of pen and paper assessments shine during these portfolio nights. In other classes, students have opportunitites to show their competence through project work. One language arts teacher arranged to have a chapbook of student work published through Chapbooks for Learning.