R.J. Grey Junior High School

Good afternoon,

Since February, (which seems like years ago, and not only 3 months) I have been involved with the District’s Leadership Coalition to Eliminate Hate and Bias Speech. These meetings have involved a broad group of educators, some junior high and high school students, and several representatives from our families. We’ve spent time trying to narrow in on the real problem we’re trying to solve. In our last meeting, we feel like we got closer to identifying the things, that, if we improved, would help to eliminate some of the hate and bias language and actions that we’ve seen increase in recent years. 

Our group has developed a statement of the problem:

There is an underlying culture that exists in Acton-Boxborough school community which allows hate and bias speech to be perpetuated that includes the following characteristics:

• Individuals engage in a range of hate and bias speech or behaviors that serve to dehumanize members of our community who belong to marginalized groups. These include:

  • Jokes and slurs that ridicule or reinforce stereotypes

  • Behaviors that target, demean or harass individual(s)

  • Public displays of hate

• Hate and bias speech takes place in different settings, and is often influenced and amplified by the use of social media

• Some individuals minimize, dismiss, or normalize the existence of hate and bias speech in our schools and community.

• There are inconsistent and/or insufficient responses by educators and students to interrupt the hate and bias speech in the moment enough to modify behaviors and culture

The first step, and an important one, was to identify the problem. The next steps are to identify action steps we can all take to help make progress. While there needs to be a mutli-pronged approach, one of the steps RJ Grey is taking, is to introduce the A World of Difference program at the junior high next year. We’ve been working with the Anti-Defamation League since the winter and are making steps to move forward with this work. A World of Difference is a program that uses a peer-leader model whereby a group of student leaders are trained to recognize and challenge bias and bullying; practice anti-bias facilitation skills; and take on a leadership role in our school. We’re excited to roll out this program in the fall and recruit next year’s 7th and 8th graders to take an active part in learning about how to accomplish this work. We anticipate working with the ADL in the fall to train our peer leaders, and then push the work into other parts of our school day to impact all of our students and staff. Our admin team and teachers will also consider what other steps we can take here at RJ Grey to help in this important work. More to come next year!

Thank you to everyone who supported their 7th grader who attended our celebration last Friday night. From fancy dresses and sport coats, to shorts and sweatshirts, they wore it all! The almost 300 students who attended seemed to have a great time in our gyms. Before leaving for my own middle school dances, my mom would always tell me and my friends, “If someone asks you to dance, you have to say yes!” Knowing the courage that it takes to ask someone to dance, she felt it would be devastating to hear “no” as an answer. I didn’t get asked to dance a lot, and that was okay, but I always said yes if asked! Most our own celebration didn’t involve couples dancing at all, which I’m okay with. For many of our kids, there was some nervous energy for the first few minutes, not knowing what to expect. After a few minutes and a few bags of Doritos, they settled in and had a great time. Thank you to the adults who helped set up for the celebration, helped serve snacks, and endlessly refilled gallon jugs to keep our students hydrated. Durga Nirgudkar, Elise Calisi, Melissa MacGillvray, Pooja Garg, Sujatha Kapoor, and Caitlin Hazelgrove all assisted in a big way and I thank them for their help! The 8th grade end of year celebration will be on Friday, June 9th from 7 - 9 pm. We hope for an equally fun time for our students before they head off to high school. 

We have been collecting student permission slips for our upcoming end of year trips. Our 7th graders will go to Mel’s Funway on June 13th. Our 8th graders will go to Canobie Lake Park on June 15th. If you haven’t yet signed a permission slip or turned in a check, please send those in with your student as soon as you can. If the fee is any trouble for you, please just let us know and we’re happy to help out. We always find that these trips are great ways to close out the year and have our students experience their community one last time before leaving for the summer.

However you choose to spend this Memorial Day Weekend, I hope you enjoy it! 

Here are some dates to be aware of:

• Mon, May 29: No School, Memorial Day

• Thurs, June 1: Empty Bowls Event, 5:30 - 7:30 pm

• Fri, June 2: ABRHS Graduation

• Mon, June 5: Library closed after school

• Fri, June 9: 8th grade Celebration, 7 - 9 pm

• Tues, June 13: 7th grade field trip to Mel’s Funway

• Thurs, June 15: 8th grade field trip to Canobie Lake

• Fri, June 16: Last day of school

Take care and have a great weekend,
Jim

Good evening,

This week’s message covers several important reminders and invitations; thanks for reading on!

• You are invited to our Empty Bowls Event on Thursday, June 1 from 5:30 - 7:30. If you like ice cream, plan to be here! This event is put on by our visual and performing arts departments. You’ll have the chance to buy ice cream in a handcrafted clay bowl designed by our 7th grade art students. You can also catch our Select Choir performing, and you can see some of our student art on display. This is a fun, lowkey event that I would love to see many of our families attend! The event costs $5 per person, with a $20 cap per family. All proceeds benefit the Acton Food Pantry.

• One of our Advisory groups has organized a food drive, also benefiting the Acton Food Pantry. Students and adults are welcome to bring non-perishable goods through May 26. We have a drop-off location in our lobby. Thanks for your support!

• On Monday, I emailed all of our families with a request to complete two surveys. All schools in the District are having families complete the Panorama survey on Family Engagement. At RJ Grey, we wanted to include two open-ended questions for families to answer, as well. If you haven’t already done so, we’d appreciate your response on these two surveys for RJ Grey families: Panorama Survey, RJ Grey Open-Ended Questions

• Finally, we have 7th grade end of year celebration tomorrow night, from 7 - 9 pm in the gym. It helps all of us when students know exactly how they’re getting home after the event. The fun ends promptly at 9:00. We will stay with any student who is awaiting a ride, so to save your child the potential embarrassment of hanging with me until their ride comes, thanks for being on time!

• Finally, the Acton Food Pantry has asked us to share that their Chef Challenge Fundraiser is back on June 11. Please check out their site for how to participate and get tickets. 

Here are some dates to be aware of:

• Fri, May 19: 7th grade Dance, 7 - 9 pm

• Wed, May 24: Spring Band Concert, 7 pm

• Thurs, May 25: Math iReady Assessment

• Thurs, May 25: Spring Chorus Concert, 7 pm

• Mon, May 29: No School, Memorial Day

• Fri, June 2: ABRHS Graduation

Take care and have a great weekend,
Jim

Good evening,

Our theme for Advisory this month is Gratitude. On Wednesday, most of our advisory groups watched a brief video on the health and brain benefits that come when we focus on gratitude. Many of our students were thankful for friends, pets, and you, their families. Students wrote what they were thankful for and folded those into tiny hearts or stars. After a bit of trial and error, we got our fingers into origami-mode and made it happen.

Every Friday, the RJ Grey administrators share the responsibility of sending the weekly update for the next week to our staff. On a rotating basis, we also include a message about something going on in our own lives, or something that we’ve seen in school that week. Last week was my turn and I wrote about three of my own most memorable and important teachers over the years. I told the staff about my 3rd grade teacher, 6th grade teacher, and high school Spanish teacher. I recalled these teachers’ kindness, humor, passion, and other reasons why they are memorable to me. One of them quite literally influenced my decision to become a Spanish teacher.  I don’t always show or practice gratitude, but according to the video we watched this week, doing so could make me healthier and happier!

We are coming up to the end of Teacher Appreciation Week. If you have a minute this week, or next, and you can write a quick note of thanks to one of your child’s teachers, it would be most welcome. Our teachers and staff at RJ Grey work really hard to provide excellent learning experiences for your children. They prepare lessons that will stretch your child. They grade work with your child’s face in mind and know when they’ve mastered something they previously struggled with. They plan field trips to Boda Borg or the Peabody Essex Museum to expose your students to something different, fun, and important. Saying thank you and showing gratitude is most appreciated by our staff.

Here are several items that have been approved for sharing by our Superintendent’s Office:

• Matilda Performances at Theatre III

• Volleyball Clinic

• Pan Mass Challenge Kids

• AB Cultural Council Film Series

• Field Hockey Clinic and Sign-up Form

• Boxborough Red Sox Night

• Flerra Summer Playground

Here are some dates to be aware of:

• Mon, May 15: Early Release at 1 pm

• Tues, May 16: iReady ELA Assessment

• Fri, May 19: 7th grade Dance, 7 - 9 pm

• Wed, May 24: Spring Band Concert, 7 pm

• Thurs, May 25: iReady Math Assessment

• Thurs, May 25: Spring Chorus Concert, 7 pm

• Mon, May 29: No School, Memorial Day

Take care and have a great weekend,
Jim

Good afternoon,

I hope you are all well. If you’ve planted grass seed, plants, or fertilized recently, you hit the jackpot with this cool and rainy weather! I am eagerly looking forward to this weekend when this dreary pattern is supposed to let up a little. 

In last week’s message, I referenced meeting many of our current 6th grade families last Wednesday night. One of the topics I shared with them was the importance of school attendance. I said, “daily attendance is important.” Many of you might be thinking I spend most of my day making obvious statements! I do…but sometimes I say more profound things, too. My point in sharing this with incoming families, and today, sharing with you, is to remind all of us that when students are absent, learning continues to happen at school, and those experiences are hard to replicate. Entering 7th grade is a good time to assess whether your child can tolerate the missed in person learning while on a trip to Disney or a cruise to the Bahamas during the school year. Entering the junior high years means that learning continues to happen while families are away, and it is then necessary for the student to work harder to make up that lost learning.

Since Covid, we’ve all placed much more importance on checking in with our own bodies. We are much more cautious with a stuffy nose, a cough, or a mild fever. I want all of us to continue with those precautions as they keep us all healthy. The thing our team has noticed over the past few years is that the frequency of long weekends away, or entire weeks of vacation, during non-school vacation times, has increased. We have only 180 days per year with our students. We do our best to fill each one of those with engaging lessons, interesting topics, hands-on science labs, and some joy and friendship. Students will be sick, will need to attend a funeral, and will need to travel out of state for a weekend. Those things are all necessary and important. My point in talking to the families last week was to say, if you travel to Disney, the Caribbean, or another continent, your child will be missing out on what’s happening in the day-to-day. No amount of extra help after school or checking Google Classroom will make up for the missed experience of being in school. Our teachers will do their best to make sure your child knows what they missed and how to access ways to make up some learning. But, nothing can replace being in the room when the learning took place.

This message is not to shame anyone, nor to make anyone alter plans for these next 6 weeks. I am just starting to socialize that daily attendance is important, especially starting in the 7th and 8th grades. If you ever write to us and ask, “can we take a trip to Minnesota for an extended weekend?,” I will answer, “Sounds fun, and you should make decisions for your family.” I would likely let you know that your child will have some work to make up when they return and they can check in with their teachers about when to make up any assessments or other learning. But if you are planning an important experience for your family - do it! Just be ready to support your child with their learning when they return.

This is a more weighty topic than I tend to write about. But with this particular column, I think it’s important to share school-wide topics that are on our minds. However this lands for you, thanks for considering the message. Please reach out if you have any questions.

Here are some dates to be aware of:

• Fri, May 5: 7th grade Math MCAS Session 2

• Fri, May 5: Student Council applications due

• Mon, May 8: School Council Meeting at 7 pm on Zoom

• May 8 - 12: Teacher Appreciation Week

• Tues, May 16: iReady ELA Assessment

• Fri, May 19: 7th grade Dance, 7 - 9 pm

Take care and have a great weekend,
Jim