R.J. Grey Junior High School

Good afternoon,

Our students, with your support, continue to rise to the challenges we present to them. As you know, we held a Food Drive yesterday for the Acton Food Pantry. I hope many of you have some remaining items left in your cupboards because from the looks of it, we collected most of the food available in Acton and Boxborough! We purposely had the donations come through our Advisory groups as one small way to orient our Advisories into thinking about “community” more often. We are very pleased with our donations, and I’m sure the food pantry will be, as well. Thank you for your support!

It’s hard to believe we’re already at the end of October! At the beginning of each month, our assistant principals take a look at absence and tardy totals for all of our students. If they see a trend towards absences or tardies that seems important, you will receive a somewhat formal letter alerting you to your child’s current attendance status. This letter is a requirement from DESE. I ask that anyone who receives this letter receives it as intended - it is solely a heads up! We are not sending a letter intending to assign blame or question parental decision related to illnesses, funerals, or other important items that interrupt typical school attendance. We will send letters even if we know your child was out for several days for legitimate reasons. If you receive a letter and have a curiosity about why, please be in touch with the assistant principal, or feel free to share background info if you feel it is relevant to how we best work with your student.

Throughout the last year or so, and in different settings, I’ve talked about attendance - at 6th grade family night back in April, at staff meetings, and through this column on previous occasions. There is somewhat of a “magic number” for us in schools. DESE and therefore schools, look at 10% as an important threshold. Students whose absences exceed ten percent in one year are deemed “chronically absent” by DESE. Ten percent of our school year is only 18 days! And 18 days is only about 2 days per month - so for some families, I think this could creep up without realizing a pattern. We are working on lowering our chronically absent rate - it’s part of our School Improvement Plan. And more than that, we want to make sure kids are in school because being here is how we can help them learn content, how to read and write more clearly, how to think critically, and how to create community with their teachers and peers. So, if at the beginning of November or any future month, you receive a letter alerting you to absences, please take it for what it is - a heads up! But be in touch if you have any questions or need some assistance with getting your child to school on a very regular basis.

We hosted four assemblies last week where representatives from Acton-Boxborough Regional High School spoke to 8th graders. Each 8th grade team was a great audience and showed a great amount of respect for their presenters. Ms. Dean and her team talked to students about types of classes they can take at ABRHS, along with community service opportunities, athletics and activities, and counseling supports available to students. Normally, we arrange for students to meet with the high school later in the spring. This year, we wanted to make sure students had a chance to learn about the high school around the same time they might be considering private or technical school options. 

I want to thank our Student Council for organizing to have AB Revolution T-shirts for all of our 7th graders. The back of the shirt displays “Class of 29!” Last year, our current 8th graders (Class of 28) received these same t-shirts. These are just a small nod to our efforts to promote community and school pride! I have been happy to see many of these t-shirts being worn this week.

Upcoming Dates

• Friday, November 3: Quarter 1 (Grey Block classes) ends

• Monday, November 6: Library closed after school, Staff Meeting

• Tuesday, November 7: Election Day

• Thursday, November 9: No School for Students: Professional Day

• Friday, November 10: No School: Veterans Day

• Wednesday, November 22: Early Release for Thanksgiving (11:10 am)

• Thurs/Friday, Nov 23 and 24: No School for Thanksgiving Holiday

Take care and have a great weekend!
Jim

Good afternoon,

I was very happy to see many of our students and many of you at last Sunday’s Walk Against Hate. The weather was great for a quick walk from ABRHS to the new Gardner Field in West Acton. We continue the work against hate and bias here at RJ Grey. Starting next week, 28 of our students will be trained as peer leaders by the Anti-Defamation League as part of the A World of Difference Program. After their training, they’ll work together with their advisors to create lessons that they’ll deliver to their peers during the second half of the year. I remain hopeful for our communities because I see how passionate and committed our students and educators are.

Despite our good work and positive intent, we do encounter situations where students make mistakes - on a daily basis! They are middle schoolers and their brains are not yet fully developed, so we understand that mistakes happen. At a moment in the future, you may get a call from a teacher, a counselor, or an administrator to let you know that something happened and that there may be a consequence for your child’s actions. If this happens, it is not the end of the world! We look to partner with you and make sure you understand our goal, which is to make sure the student can reflect and consider how their actions have impacted others and how they can commit to not repeating those same actions.

Over the past year, our admin team has taken a different approach towards typical “consequences.” Last year, our newer admin team debated the value and importance of consequences like lunch detention. Lunch detention is something we’d gotten used to using with students who did something that merited some level of consequence. Lunch detention serves a purpose - removing the fun privilege of being with friends during lunch on a temporary basis. But we didn’t embed a ton of learning into lunch detentions due to their short time frame. At other times in the past, suspensions were also used with students as a consequence. 

With an eye towards using more restorative practices and really focusing on what a student could learn from an experience, we shifted our focus to using more time spent after school. “Detention” is a bad name for what we do. My only time serving a detention was in high school when I forgot my student ID badge at home one morning. Detention at Lowell High in the late ‘90s was an after school consequence where I sat in a room with about 15 other students - I’m not sure if their offenses were more serious than forgetting their student ID! We couldn’t talk, couldn’t read, we just had to sit there. We don’t use that version of detention here at RJ Grey. Instead, the student meets with the assistant principal after school, and through either chatting or in writing, the student reflects on what happened for them to end up after school. In that conversation, the AP will likely give some direction and ask some probing questions for the student to consider about how their actions impacted others, and how they could work to make the situation better. At times, the AP might ask the student to create a poster, or a Google Slide presentation on what they’ve learned. Or, they might write a letter of apology to someone, or they may need to talk to a trusted adult about whatever occurred and what they learned from it. Our ultimate goal when a student makes a mistake is for them to learn something, consider how it impacted others or the community, and remember their process of reflections in order to prevent something similar from happening again. That level of conversation and processing doesn’t often fit during the day, so we have students stay after school to do so. We don’t have a ton of students serving after school time, but knowing that middle schoolers make mistakes quite often, I wanted to share this process and our philosophy. 

We have a ONE DAY food drive coming up next Wednesday. You likely saw my message earlier this week through email. We are collecting items in Advisory on Wednesday to benefit the Acton Food Pantry. Thank you for supporting your child as they may raid your own cabinets before next Wednesday.

As we approach the end of the month, I wanted to remind you all again that we are not dressing in costume this year for Halloween. This is a shift from past practice at RJ Grey, but is in line with what the elementary schools in our District are doing. So if you hear any excited talk about your child’s costume, please make sure they are referring to wearing it to family or community events, where I hope they have some fun!

Finally, if you have not already done so, please remember to activate your ParentSquare Account!  ParentSquare account emails were sent Monday 9/18 to the email address we have on file for you in PowerSchool.  Creating your ParentSquare account will allow you to personalize how you get communications from us and use the ParentSquare App.  If you did not receive an email to activate your account or need help, please contact  [email protected].

Upcoming Dates

• Monday, October 23: Early Release at 1 pm

• Monday, October 23: Round 1 of PE/Health classes end

• Friday, November 3: Quarter 1 (Grey Block classes) ends

• Monday, November 6: Library closed after school, Staff Meeting

• Tuesday, November 7: Election Day

• Thursday, November 9: No School for Students: Professional Day

• Friday, November 10: No School: Veterans Day

Take care and have a great weekend!
Jim

Good afternoon,

On Tuesday morning, I shared an announcement with our students that referenced the horrible terrorist attacks in Israel from this past weekend. To all of you who are affected by the ongoing violence in the Middle East, you have my deepest sympathies. Throughout that day I was able to stop into several Social Studies classes to see how teachers talked about the news with their students. In at least two classes I observed, students talked about worrying about family or friends who live in the area or concern that this current violence would spread to other parts of the world. Your children are feeling the effects of this ongoing violence, and I am sure many of you are, too. Our goal at RJ Grey is to support our students. If your child needs some support that they aren’t already receiving, please be in touch with us and we’ll make sure to connect them with a trusted adult.

Over the past few years, our school has needed to talk to students about events that impact their lives in major ways. In only the past few years, we’ve helped students understand the events from January 6th; we’ve talked with them about the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas; we’ve also talked with them about the war in Ukraine. I feel strongly that our 7th and 8th graders need to hear from their teachers when current events take over the news cycle. When we do so, our goal is to provide them with factual information as currently known. In many cases, there is a historical context or understanding that can be connected to the current events, too. I deeply appreciate the work our social studies teachers did on Monday to be prepared to teach on Tuesday. Setting aside their own personal impact, they were able to talk to students about concrete events from the previous days. 

Today, our 8th graders attended an assembly where they learned about Minuteman High School as one of their options for high school next year. Representatives, including students from Minuteman talked about their school and what it offers. The application process has begun for next year and if your child is interested, they can check out more online and potentially apply. Representatives from our own high school, ABRHS, will give their own presentations to our 8th graders next week. We are still quite a distance from ninth grade (today is only day 29 of school!), but with schools that require an application and acceptance, that process begins in the fall.

Tomorrow is Pajama Day at RJ Grey. I will likely wear a pair of sweatpants to fit in with the relaxed nature of the day. Two years ago, a family asked me if their kids had to wear pajamas on this annual day. The answer, of course, is no! Participation in this type of spirit day is completely optional - we usually have about 50% of students participate. I think I’ll skip my typical shirt, tie, and dress shoes for something a bit more relaxed tomorrow…feel free to encourage your child to join me!

Finally, if you have not already done so, please remember to activate your ParentSquare Account!  ParentSquare account emails were sent Monday 9/18 to the email address we have on file for you in PowerSchool. Creating your ParentSquare account will allow you to personalize how you get communications from us and use the ParentSquare App. If you did not receive an email to activate your account or need help, please contact  [email protected].

The following updates have been approved by our Superintendent’s office for distribution:

• Conant PTO Craft Fair

• Stride Into Stem

• Girls Engineering Club Robotics and Coding

Upcoming Dates

• Friday, October 13: Pajama Day

• Sunday, October 15: Walk Against Hate, 2 pm starting at ABRHS

• Tuesday, October 17: School Council Meeting, 7 pm in Library

• Monday, October 23: Early Release at 1 pm

• Monday, October 23: Round 1 of PE/Health classes end

Take care and have a great weekend!
Jim

Good afternoon,

Thank you to everyone who joined us last Thursday for Back to School Night. I was in a virtual meeting with principals from around the state a few weeks ago. The question posed to us was, “Describe a time when you’ve witnessed joy in your school.” I listened to others talk about students, and not wanting to repeat their answers, I said that our annual Back to School Night is always filled with joy! I hope you got a good feeling about how your child spends their days by spending a few hours with us last week.

Next week, our teachers will work on determining which student would benefit from an Interim Report. At RJ Grey, we use interims at the halfway point of each of our trimesters. Not all students receive interim reports. We tend to send them specifically when a grade is below a  C-, or other habits including homework completion or studying could use some improvement. The first trimester is always a challenging one to gauge who needs to receive an interim. At this early point in the year, there aren’t a ton of grades yet. But teachers tend to err on the side of caution and alert families when they see something that feels like it could be improved. 

It is important to acknowledge that for some of our students, this year will be the first time they receive letter grades in their classes. Whether their previous schools issued standards-based report cards, or had no report cards, I want to share a bit about how things work at RJ Grey. Our teachers design assessments to measure a student’s learning of a particular topic, concept, unit, etc. There will be quizzes, some tests, some writing assignments, speaking assignments and other ways for kids to show their teachers what they’ve learned. A single grade on an assessment will not make or break a term grade for a student. At this early point in the year, there may only be one or two assessments. If one poor grade triggers an interim, all hope is not lost! Our teachers spend time writing a narrative to accompany the interim report so that you can know what has caused the low grade, and how it can be improved. If you receive an interim report for your child, and if you have questions, please be in touch with the teacher directly.

If you are like me, October is one of your favorite months. I’m not used to weather quite this warm in October, however. At the end of October is Halloween. For many years, the Junior High has celebrated Halloween by giving permission for students to dress in costumes at school. Last year, when all of the AB elementary schools moved away from having students dress up at school, we continued for one more year and allowed our students to dress in costume. We are now coming in line with the District practices of not dressing in costume at school. We very much appreciate that our adolescents still want to have fun and join friends in some of their favorite Halloween traditions, so I encourage you to keep those celebrations alive for your children outside of school. My own kids were the Sanderson sisters from Hocus Pocus last year. I’m sure this year’s costumes won’t compete, but I know they’ll still have fun dressing up and going around the neighborhood with friends and cousins. I wish your family fun celebrations, too.

I want to highlight more than just by an attached document that there is a community-wide event on October 15, starting at 2 pm. The New England Walk Against Hate, sponsored by Congregation Beth Elohim Acton and the Anti-Defamation League, New England is an event that intends to join the AB Community in a one-mile walk and rally against antisemitism, racism, and all forms of bigotry. If you are interested in participating, or volunteering, please click the link above. As RJ Grey and other schools work to combat the uptick in bias incidents we’ve seen in the last few years, this is an important community-wide show of support. I hope I see you there!

Finally, if you have not already done so, please remember to activate your ParentSquare Account!  ParentSquare account emails were sent Monday 9/18 to the email address we have on file for you in PowerSchool.  Creating your ParentSquare account will allow you to personalize how you get communications from us and use the ParentSquare App.  If you did not receive an email to activate your account or need help, please contact  [email protected].

The following updates have been approved by our Superintendent’s office for distribution:

• Youth Mental Health First Aid Training

Upcoming Dates

• Monday, October 9: No School, Indigenous Peoples’ Day

• Friday, October 13: Pajama Day

• Tuesday, October 17: School Council Meeting, 7 pm in Library

• Monday, October 23: Early Release at 1 pm

• Monday, October 23: Round 1 of PE/Health classes end

Take care and have a great long weekend!
Jim