Eye on the Junior High



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May 2022 - Posts

Good afternoon,


Spring has arrived. The recent bright sunny days make the light coat of pollen over everything just a bit easier to deal with. I hope you’re looking forward to the unofficial start of summer this weekend with Memorial Day. Last year we bought a 15-foot Intex pool. It’s one of those that comes together quickly with PVC poles and a vinyl liner. I pulled it out of the garage last weekend to discover some pumpkin seeds and a 2-inch hole. I’m imagining some kind of small animal must have made himself comfortable over the winter. A quick trip to the hardware store for a vinyl patch made it possible to get the pool up and we’ve been slowly filling it over the week. My kids, who don’t feel cold in the water, will likely get to take the first swim this weekend. I hope you have some fun plans, too.


I wrote to you all on Tuesday night with our plans for how we planned to talk about the shootings in Texas. As always, your kids were great. When I sit in my office and make announcements, I don’t get the immediate feedback that teachers get when they’re face-to-face, so I never know how our messages on serious topics land for our kids. Our teachers reported back that they took our messaging seriously and I know some teachers asked them throughout the day to share, or write any of their fears, wonderings, or hopes coming out of the situation. I still remain sad thinking about it all while remaining committed to keeping RJ Grey as safe as it can be. That’s the work for all of us, so thank you for your partnership in this.


Turning to happier thoughts - we had a great seventh grade celebration last Friday. We sold about 340 tickets - I’m not positive all of those students came, but we had a great turnout. All of the chaperones and I were happy to see kids just having fun. I talked to the attendees at the start of the event and reminded them that our goals of Joy and Community were being represented by the particular event they were a part of and I reiterated our expectations for what their behavior should look like. They rose to the occasion and there was a lot of joy and community that night. Events like this only come together with the support of our PTSO and our staff. To start, I’d like to thank the parent volunteers who took on the important job of setting up and staffing the snack and drink tables. Megan Connor, Deb Datta, Diane Randolph Jones, Barbara Miranda, Durga Nirgudkar, and Dara Sweetser all volunteered their time and energy and the kids greatly appreciated it. And thank you to all of you who dropped off boxes of Doritos, desserts, and other snacks and drinks. You contributed to a great event!


I’m putting in a plug for our AB Summer School options. They have some classes that are appropriate for our students. If you’re interested, please see the info below and check out their website:


Summer School Registration

Join us this summer at the AB Summer school!  Summer School 2022 dates are Monday, June 27th - Friday, August 5th for six-week classes and Monday, June 27th - Friday, July 22nd for summer physical education classes.  A full range of Enrichment, Remedial and Test Prep courses include: English, Creative Writing, Math 7, Math 8, Algebra I, Geometry, Algebra II, Math Counts, SAT Prep, Science Research, & Physical Education.  Course offerings and other information can be found on the AB Summer School website.  Email [email protected] with questions!  


We are certainly closing in on the end of the school year. I hope it winds down well for all of you and your children. Have a great long weekend!


Here are some upcoming dates to be aware of:

-Monday, May 30: No School, Memorial Day

-Thursday, June 2: RJ Grey Choral Performance

-Friday, June 3: High School Graduation on Leary Field

-Friday, June 10: Great East Music Festival

-Friday, June 10: 8th Grade Celebration, 7 - 9 pm

-Friday, June 17: 8th Grade trip to Mel’s Funway

-Tuesday, June 21: End of year assembly, early release at 11:10 am



Take care,


Jim Marcotte



Posted by jmarcotte  On May 26, 2022 at 4:52 PM
  

Good evening,


Thank you to everyone for your well-wishes regarding my Covid case. I feel fully recovered, and as I said last week, I feel grateful for having a mild case. Up through now, my wife and daughters remain negative, which is also great news! I hope your family has been able to stay healthy.


This was a busy week at RJ Grey. We are in the process of hiring for several teaching positions. After our hiring committees do initial interviews of candidates, we invite finalists back to RJ Grey for demo lessons. We have our finalists create a lesson to deliver to one of our current classes. While the demo lesson doesn’t show us the complete perspective of how a teacher will lead a class of their own, it does give us a bit of insight into how a candidate interacts with students, and how students respond to the energy and instruction of the guest teacher. Relationships and trust between students and teachers are huge factors for us. We know that if students don’t trust their teachers or if they don’t have a relationship, we won’t see the maximum amount of learning. After a candidate teaches a demo lesson, they then spend about 30 minutes in an interview with me. I ask what they thought of the lesson, I ask what it might look like if I visited their own classroom, and I ask about their thoughts about working with middle schoolers! We are very fortunate to have lots of candidates who love the idea of working with 12, 13, and 14 year olds. I am excited about the teachers we’ll be bringing on board for next fall.


Before we get to the fall, we need to get through this spring. Coming up tomorrow evening is our 7th Grade Celebration! It starts at 7 and ends at 9 pm. The event will feature food, music, dancing, the Limbo, and fun for all. Thank you to Ms. Ahl, our Student Council advisor for her work on this, along with our PTSO volunteers who help with all of the arrangements. Later this spring, on June 10th, the 8th graders will have their own evening celebration. We are not a school that does a graduation ceremony. It just has not ever been a part of the culture of RJ Grey. So in addition to the evening celebration, we’ll have an 8th grade year-end field trip to Mel’s Funway Park, in Litchfield, New Hampshire. This trip will take place on Friday, June 17th. Permission slips will be coming home soon. Prior to Covid, we took the 8th graders to Canobie Lake Park. I am very willing to admit fault in not booking Canobie early enough this year for our entire grade to attend. So, we made some adjustments and are going to try out a new venue for this year’s trip. Trying something new seems to be the theme of the year; we are very excited about getting to spend a fun day off-campus with our 8th graders.  Our 7th grade teams have each taken, or will take, trips to Boda Borg this spring, so they will be staying on campus for the end of the year. But we have some fun activities in store for them, too.


Our last day of school is Tuesday, June 21st, with an 11:10 dismissal. We’ll end our year with a school-wide assembly at ABRHS where we’ll recognize some of our students and our retiring staff members, and we'll get to see the always fun End of Year Slideshow. This is always an enjoyable assembly for me and marks the close of the year with all of us being together one last time.

Finally, our friends at the High School have asked for your help in being part of the annual Project Graduation. Please see the info below about how you can be part of this very successful event to help keep our graduating Seniors safe on their graduation night:

RJ Grey Parents: We Could Use Your Help! 

We are so excited to be back inside the high school for Project Graduation 2022, the all-night, all-inclusive, substance-free celebration for seniors on Friday, June 3Class of 2022 parents are not allowed to volunteer at Project Graduation. Someday, that will be you! But right now, you can pay it forward. We need YOUR helpas chaperonesfood servers, and entertainment assistants. Here is our GIGANTIC PG2022 Main Event SignUpGenius! It's so big because we need so much help. The best part is keeping kids safe, but the next best part is that it's a really fun night for the volunteers too. Oh, and there's one specific thing we still need: a henna artist! If you are a parent with henna art skills and you'd like to volunteer your time at this year's event, please send us an email
Jennifer Mabardy and Jennifer Philion
AB Project Graduation 2021 Co-Chairs

I hope you’re all doing well. Have a good night!


Here are some upcoming dates to be aware of:

-Friday, May 20: 7th grade Celebration, 7 - 9 pm

-Monday, May 30: No School, Memorial Day

-Friday, June 3: High School Graduation on Leary Field



Take care,


Jim Marcotte



Posted by jmarcotte  On May 19, 2022 at 8:41 PM
  

Good afternoon,


I hope you and your families are doing well and enjoying the recent change in the weather. It’s starting to actually feel like May! This will be a brief message today and it focuses on our nemesis of the last two years: Covid-19. In full disclosure, I am at home this week with Covid. My symptoms are mild, for which I feel very lucky. Many of us know people who have had serious complications or worse from Covid. So while at home, I’m trying to isolate myself from my family but find myself super grateful that it’s a beautiful May day and not the dead of winter so that I can spend time outside with my family safely.


Each day for most of this year, our nurse has sent me an email (or multiple emails) with the name of a student who is newly diagnosed with Covid. I send that along to that student’s set of teachers with their expected date of return. You can see our case counts over the last few weeks by checking out our Covid site; our case counts have been growing over the last few weeks. What I’ve noticed over the last few days is that we’ve been diagnosing some students here at school. Plenty of students are tested at home and don’t come in on a day when they’re not feeling completely well. As we narrow in on the end of the year, I’d ask all of us to redouble our efforts to be on the lookout for signs of illness. If there is any sign of illness, I ask that you please test your child, either at home or at their doctor’s office or pharmacy, and if they aren’t feeling great, please keep them home. I am hoping we’re on the downward trend with cases at RJ Grey, but only time will tell us that. If you have any questions about illness or symptoms, please reach out to our health office at 978 264-4700 x 3318.


While there is no change in official mask status at AB, we still encourage students to make decisions about mask-wearing that make sense for them and for their families. We continue to keep doors and windows open and our air filtration systems operating. We’ve returned to allowing for outdoor lunches on the days that weather and supervision allow for it. I know we’ll have a positive end of the year, and I thank you for your support in keeping an eye on your child’s health status. Please be in touch with any questions.


Here are some upcoming dates to be aware of:

-Friday, May 13: 7th grade Math MCAS Session 2

-Monday, May 16: School Council on Zoom,  7 pm

-Friday, May 20: 7th grade Celebration, 7 - 9 pm


Take care,


Jim Marcotte



Posted by jmarcotte  On May 12, 2022 at 2:31 PM
  

Good afternoon,


I hope you are all doing well. If you aren’t aware, this week is National Teacher Appreciation Week. I follow many educational leaders on social media and I see the gifts, spreads of food, balloons, and daily treats that other principals have provided for their staff over the past four days. If I had to rate myself on a rubric, I would be “Unsatisfactory” for demonstrating my appreciation in this way. I do have the same sentiment these people have though, just without the catering bill to pay.  I continue to be so very appreciative of the teachers and staff who work at RJ Grey. I have asked you twice before in this column to please reach out and thank your child’s teachers. If you haven’t already done so, or even if you have, this is a good week to thank a teacher or someone who works in a school.


I have observed several teachers this week, and in our post-observation conversations about the lesson, I often ask questions that I’m wondering about, or I ask the teacher to fill in the gaps for me: what happened the day before, what was next in the sequence of activities? Having these lesson debriefs this week continues to remind me that our teachers are thinking of 100 things at the same time: planning for the student who has trouble reading to access the text you just handed out, making sure the two girls who are having an argument aren’t sitting in the same group, re-teaching something that you taught the day before that you know went right over their heads, remembering when class ends today because the schedule is different because of Math MCAS. The to-do list of every teacher is endless, and all of those tasks are in service of teaching our kids and making our school a really great place for kids to learn. If you haven’t done so yet, please thank a teacher or two this week!


I have several community-based announcements that I want to share with you today: one is RJG-based, one is AB-based, and the others relate to the summer!


Last week, I mentioned that we’ll be having a 7th grade celebration on May 20 from 7 - 9 pm. Music, food, fun, and some dancing will hopefully make for a fun night in the gym. 7th graders will be able to start purchasing tickets soon. This event, and the next one I’m going to describe, are just for RJ Grey students: friends from other towns will have fun at their own schools, I’m sure!  Towards the end of the year, we’ll also have our 8th grade celebration. This will take place on Friday, June 10th at 7 pm in our cafeteria. This is historically a really fun night for our 8th graders before they move on to high school. My wife went to RJ Grey many years ago and still affectionately calls this event “the semi,” as in semi-formal. We have moved past that understanding and while students do dress more nicely than they do for school, it is a low-key event where kids get together. No one needs fancy clothes, no one needs a “date,” and no one needs special plans for an after-party. We’ll talk more about this event to your students in the coming weeks. We are very grateful for the group of parents who will work with our PTSO and some of our staff to pull off this great night.

- - - - - - - - -

If your child went to the Douglas School, I want to make sure you see this announcement: 

Calling All Douglas Elementary Alumni!

 

The C.T. Douglas Elementary School PTO is hosting a Farewell to Elm St Party on June 1st from 5pm-7pm. Our entire Douglas Community (alumni too!) is invited to party together and give Elm St. the send-off it deserves before we move over to the Boardwalk Campus. Picture warm weather, food trucks (BYO option too), yard games, and just plain hanging out with people…it’s going to be FUN! *Held rain or shine

 

RSVP HERE by May 15 as we need a headcount for our food trucks/vendors to prepare. Those who RSVP by the deadline will be entered into a gift card raffle announced at the party.

- - - - - - - - -

If you are thinking about summer (we all are!), I want to share a financial resource that we’re aware of. The Doli Atamian Campership Program provides scholarships to summer camps and programs/classes for children in Acton and Boxborough based on family income. The application process is simple, and each child/student may receive up to $300 towards a summer camp program or activities/classes of the family’s choice. For more information about the Campership scholarship and an application form, go to https://www.doliatamiancampership.com/ or call 978-515-3227.

- - - - - - - - -

Dear Families of Students Who Will Be Entering 6th-8th Grade Next Year:  

 

Minuteman High School is offering summer school enrichment programs for students entering grades 6-8 throughout July and August. Enrichment courses are optional classes intended for students to learn about subjects that interest them. 

 

Middle School Courses  

Click this link to register for summer courses

-Cost: The cost is $200 per 1-week enrichment course. 

-Transportation: School buses will be available for grade 6-8 students who live in one of Minuteman’s nine member towns: Acton, Arlington, Bolton, Concord, Dover, Lancaster, Lexington, Needham, and Stow. Scheduling and route information will be provided after the registration process is complete. 

-Dates for Middle School Summer Enrichment Courses: 

--July 11-15, 8:30 AM-11:30 AM: Auto Mechanics, Plant Science/Horticulture, Cosmetology/Salon, Early Education, Environmental Science, Veterinary Science, Multimedia
--July 11-15, 12:00-3:00 PM: Cosmetology/Salon
--July 18-22, 8:30 AM-11:30 AM: Auto Mechanics, Cosmetology/Salon, Environmental Science, Veterinary Science, Multimedia
--July 18-22, 12:00 PM-3:00 PM: Cosmetology/Salon
--July 25-29, 8:30 AM-11:30 AM: Environmental Science, Veterinary Science, Public Speaking/Debate 

 

If you have any questions about summer school courses, please contact Cindy DeMaio, summer school coordinator and cosmetology instructor.  

- - - - - - - -

Here are some upcoming dates to be aware of:

-Monday, May 9: 8th grade Math MCAS Session 2

-Tuesday, May 10: 8th grade Science MCAS

-Thursday, May 12: 7th grade Math MCAS Session 1

-Friday, May 13: 7th grade Math MCAS Session 2

-Monday, May 16: School Council on Zoom,  7 pm

-Friday, May 20: 7th grade Celebration, 7 - 9 pm


Take care,


Jim Marcotte



Posted by jmarcotte  On May 05, 2022 at 4:43 PM
  
 
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