The experiment of a "conceptual" middle school raised the possibility of separating the program from the building. The school district in which this innovation has been carried out consists of five elementary schools and one comprehensive high school which service a 400 square mile area. The district includes nine separate towns in western Massachusetts, isolated by steep Appalachian hills and narrow valleys. It is an area of severe winter weather and has a long history of intense local pride, inter-town rivalry, and poverty. Students leaving elementary school and entering high school were facing difficulties in adjusting to a strange new, sometimes rough environment, resulting in poor academic performance and misbehavior. A middle school program was developed that made use of a wing of the regional high school as well as some classrooms in each of the five elementary schools. It was conceived of as a network or bridge linking the six schools by means of a middle school program without an individual building. It was demonstrated to the elementary schools that their graduates were being warmly received, and to the high school that, with increasingly limited resources, students could be better prepared to make intelligent elective choices on entering the ninth grade, and were more able to handle specialized instruction. (JD)