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 3. Class 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 help—as chaperones, food 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