Good afternoon, RJ Grey Families:
I hope you were able to enjoy your February vacation last week. As we settle back in after a short break, our gaze starts to turn to next year! Below, I lay out a few items that are on the horizon for all of us.
Behind the scenes, our admin team is planning for what school will look like in the 25-26 school year. If you've paid attention to the budget highlights from the Superintendent and School Committee, there are planned staffing reductions across the District next year to meet our proposed budget. Specifically, at RJ Grey, we are planning to reduce three classroom teachers. As a result, we will move from having 8 teams to 7 teams next year. Our teams will be larger than recent years (approximately 120 students per team), and our class sizes will be larger too (approximately 24 students in each class). This class size average is within the school committee guidelines, so we'll be in line with other schools in the District.
It is always a tricky balance when reducing teaching positions from a middle school since teachers come in groupings (teams) and teaming is such an integral part of how we keep a large school feeling as small as possible. The reduction of a single team next year means that we'll have 3 full-size teams in 7th grade and 3 full-size teams in 8th grade. The seventh team will be a full-size team, made up of both 7th and 8th graders. We anticipate having about 50 7th graders on this team, plus about 70 8th graders. The students will attend classes with classmates from their own grade but will share a set of teachers that teach in both grades. Your incoming 7th or 8th grader will likely not notice much of a difference in their classroom experience. As for the personal aspect of our work, we are sad to be losing several staff members whose work and friendship we deeply value.
In thinking about next year, around March 19th, 7th grade parents will hear from me about course registration for 8th grade. At that time, I'll share with you the website and Parent Portal link to choose Grey Block classes and to see the recommended math class for grade 8. For current 8th grade families, the Parent Portal will be open from March 14 - 24 for you and your child to view recommended courses and choose electives for ninth grade. Teachers will talk more about high school courses in the coming weeks. Our Central Office publishes a document each year, Understanding Course Selection. This is by no means a "required read," but it is available for anyone interested in knowing more about our courses.
In other news, several staff members talked to me this week about parent drop-off in the mornings. Some of you know that one or more RJ Grey administrators are outside in the car drop-off area each morning from 7:35 - 7:55. My task at that time is to make sure students and staff safely exit their cars, cross over traffic, and enter the building. My secondary task is to keep the cars moving in a way that allows you all to drop off your passengers and get to the next parts of your day as quickly as possible. I have heard that parent drop-off has been happening in other RJ Grey parking lots and on the roadway in front of the gym. If we had more staff available at that time to monitor safety, we would deploy them to those locations. Since that is not available, I really ask that each parent uses the main parking lot (at the bottom of the stairs) to drop off in the morning. Pulling into another parking lot interrupts the arrival of staff and creates a potentially unsafe and supervised situation. I appreciate your cooperation and ask that you drop off only in the lower parking lot in the morning.
Thank you to everyone who contributed to our Library Squad's recent book drive. We donated over 1190 books to More Than Words! I am always so grateful for you - when we ask, you give! Thank you very much!
Take care and I hope you have a nice weekend,
Jim
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