As over the past several years, we offer a joint effort between Hockaday and St. Mark’s that provides our Middle School students opportunities to engage in shared, intellectual activities each year of Middle School. In the past, the interaction between our students has been limited to more social situations provided by our wonderful parent volunteers, and/or school-sponsored community service for our seventh and eighth graders, and dances in eighth grade. Dean Clayman, Head of Middle School at St. Mark’s, Gabriela Reed, St. Mark’s Middle School Counselor, Rachel Innerarity, our Middle School Counselor, Laura Day, Hockaday Director of the Institute for Social Impact, and I have designed programming that allows students from both schools to interact while serving the community, educating themselves, and conversing in meaningful ways. We are addressing the overarching goal of teaching our students about productive, developmentally-appropriate, critical-thinking interactions in mixed groups.