R.J. Grey Junior High School

Good afternoon,

We’ve had a busy 4-day week here at RJ Grey. Our 8th graders did a great job of tackling their ELA MCAS tests on Tuesday and Wednesday. Our 7th graders will take their assessments on Tuesday and Wednesday next week. There is not much that a student can do to prepare for these assessments, other than: Get plenty of sleep, Eat a good breakfast, and Charge their Chromebook overnight! 

We wrapped up our Advisory March Madness Challenge on Monday with a head-to-head Rock, Paper, Scissors competition. The whole month was a lot of fun and had a positive effect on our community here at school. We’re also able to assist our community outside of school, too. As a result of our Change for Change drive, we collected over $900 in loose change. The advisory with the most amount collected now gets to decide which organization will receive this donation. We narrowed it down to four options: AB United Way, Acton Food Pantry, Household Goods, and Merrimack Valley Black and Brown Voices. Thank you to all families who let your children bring some change from your home. Our efforts will go to a great cause!

Speaking of doing good in the community, we are also now running a clothing drive to benefit Cradles to Crayons. Every year,

 RJ Grey selects two students to serve as our Project 351 Ambassadors. The number 351 represents the number of cities and towns in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Each school selects a strong 8th grader from each representative town to join with others to learn about leadership and to lead service projects in their hometowns. Emily Taylor and Phoenix Briggs are our Ambassadors this year and they are hosting the Clothing Drive through next Friday, April 5. We are collecting clean and gently used clothing for children, sizes 0 - 12. Thank you for any donations!

Lastly, we are hosting a Solar Eclipse Viewing Party for any interested RJ Grey student after school on Monday, April 8. We’ll provide glasses and some information about the eclipse. It will be exciting to observe this phenomenon with our science teachers and other students!

Upcoming Dates

• Fri, March 29: No School, Good Friday

• Mon, April 1: Library closed to students after school

• Tues, April 2: MCAS 7 ELA

• Tues, April 2: School Council at 7 pm

• Wed, April 3: MCAS 7 ELA

• Thurs, April 4: Spring Play Performance, 7 pm

• Mon, April 8: MCAS ELA Make-ups begin

• Mon, April 8: Solar Eclipse Viewing Party, 2:45 - 3:30

• Wed, April 10: No School for Eid-al-Fitr

Take care and have a great weekend!
Jim

Good afternoon,

You’re likely aware that our trimester 2 report cards were emailed earlier this week. They are also saved in the Parent Portal if you need to locate the document again. If you have questions about a grade or a teacher’s comment that your child cannot answer, please contact the teacher to gain some additional clarity. If you think meeting with your child’s team of teachers might be a good step at this time of year, I invite you to be in touch with your child’s counselor to arrange a team meeting. Our counselors’ contact information is located here.

If your student is an 8th grader, please be sure to log into the Parent Portal to select classes for next year by tomorrow (3/22). Doing so now allows the high school to map out how many students need certain classes, which teachers get assigned to those classes, etc. If you need support in completing this process, please check out this doc on the high school website.

If your child is currently in the 7th grade, I sent a Parent Square message yesterday announcing the opening of the Parent Portal for 7th to 8th grade registration. We do the same planning as the high school but on a smaller scale. Knowing which students are taking certain classes is important for us as we map out next year’s programming. Please see our Transition/Registration website for details. We’ll keep the Portal open through next Thursday, March 28.

Finally, as a reminder this week, several of our spring sports begin on Monday, March 25th. The thought of pitchers, catchers, and the long jump excites me for spring! If your child is planning to try out for a sport or join the track team, please make sure you’ve reviewed our spring athletic information. All student-athletes must have registered with Family ID and have proof of a recent physical on file in our Health Office to try out. Having these items taken care of will allow your child to do their best at tryouts.

Upcoming Dates

• Tues, March 26: MCAS 8 ELA

• Wed, March 27: MCAS 8 ELA

• Thurs, March 28: Trivia event after school

• Fri, March 29: No School, Good Friday

• Mon, April 1: Library closed to students after school

• Tues, April 2: MCAS 7 ELA

• Tues, April 2: School Council at 7 pm

• Wed, April 3: MCAS 7 ELA

Take care and have a great weekend!
Jim

Good afternoon,

I’ve spent part of the last three Sundays running as part of a road race series. The series started with a 3-mile race, followed by 4 and 5-mile runs on the subsequent Sundays. The race series was a lot of fun and gave me a good goal to work towards as I’ve picked up running again over the past few months. Beginning many years ago, I’ve made running a part of my life, on occasion. Over those years, there have been seasons with lots of miles, including running in several half-marathons and even a marathon. There have also been periods of months or years where I haven’t run anywhere! I have enjoyed getting back out there these last few months, and I know it has had a positive impact on combatting the stress that comes with being a principal. As Spring slowly arrives, I hope you find some way to reconnect with something that feels good in hopefully beautiful weather! 

We had a great turnout for our March Madness event last Friday afternoon. We watched many hard-fought 5-minute basketball games. Even our most skilled players had a hard time with the circumstances, including a highly overinflated basketball that was tricky to dribble and shoot! As we expected, our student audience was well-behaved and boisterous as they cheered for their friends. We owe a huge thank you to the PTSO for helping to organize the small gym, which was food and drink central. Specific thanks go out to Durga Nirgudkar, Liz Gutler, Alok Nemani, Katie Raymond, Majda Tanovic, Archana Barry, and Soula Stratakias, who kept the snacks and drinks flowing. And thank you to all families who donated said food and drink for the event. 

Our March Madness Advisory events continue this month. Yesterday, we had 70+ “plate game” competitions during Advisory. Tomorrow, each Advisory will partner up and compete in several Minute to Win It-style challenges. If you don’t follow us on Instagram (@rjgreyjhs), you should, and you’ll see some pics and videos of the plate game from yesterday. As we continue to work on building a joyful, inclusive community of engaged learners, this month’s Advisory calendar has really highlighted the joyful community present every day at RJ Grey!

Upcoming Dates

• Mon, March 18: Early Release at 1 pm

• Wed, March 20: Youth Risk Behavior Survey administered to 8th graders

• Thurs, March 21: Trimester 2 Report Cards Emailed (if not earlier)

• Tues, March 26: MCAS 8 ELA

• Wed, March 27: MCAS 8 ELA

• Thurs, March 28: Trivia event after school

• Fri, March 29: No School, Good Friday

• Mon, April 1: Library closed to students after school

• Tues, April 2: MCAS 7 ELA

• Tues, April 2: School Council at 7 pm

• Wed, April 3: MCAS 7 ELA

Take care and have a great weekend!
Jim

Good afternoon,

My umbrella didn’t seem like quite enough protection during the morning drop-off this morning! My shoes are just about dry, and it’s 12:21! I hope you’ve all fared well with our dreary weather these last few days.

Tomorrow afternoon, we will host our annual March Madness basketball tournament. We expect that lots of our students will stay to watch their classmates compete in a tournament of back-to-back games. A few things make this event ideal: it’s immediately after school, it’s wrapped up before dinner time, and doesn’t have the social pressure of a dance or an evening event. If your child is joining us, I know they’ll have a great time! We also welcome you to pick them up at 4:30. The pick-up can get pretty busy, so my advice is to park in our lot and let your child know where you are, rather than trying to drive through the front circle. Major thanks to everyone who has volunteered to donate snacks for the tournament!

March Madness means several things at RJ Grey this year. When we planned for our second year of Advisory, we wanted to do something fun and different for the month of March. During each advisory session in March, we are planning school-wide activities where individual advisories accrue points for their group. On Tuesday, we played head-to-head Pictionary with two teams competing in a single classroom. My group tied (21-21) with Ms. Nielsen’s group. Today, each group participated in school-wide Trivia. This message will go out after our game, so I feel okay sharing a few questions:

• What number do you get if you take the number of keys on a piano, and subtract the number of strings on an acoustic guitar? (82)

• In which state was Taylor Swift born? (Pennsylvania)

• What color sits directly opposite blue on the color wheel? (Orange)

• When Jason Kelce just retired from the Eagles, what was his jersey number? (62)

It was fun to see which students had an expertise and confidence in certain questions! In my small group of 8, we scored 8 correct out of 14. None of us knew the combined (rounded) populations of Acton and Boxborough from the 2020 Census…30,000! 

We administered an iReady Reading diagnostic to our students yesterday. We use iReady as a way to check in on our students’ progress in reading and math two times during the year. I used the morning announcements to encourage students to do their best work so that we can see how much they’ve grown. I also told them that since it’s a dynamic assessment, the test is designed for them to get 50% of the questions wrong! We share this info so that students don’t spend hours on a question that is well beyond their current grade level. I am pleased with the effort that students put into their work yesterday, and we’ll repeat this on Tuesday for our math assessment.

Upcoming Dates

• Fri, March 8: Trimester 2 Ends

• Fri, March 8: Sports Jersey Day

• Fri, March 8: March Madness Basketball Tournament, 3 - 4:30 pm

• Tues, March 12: iReady Math assessment for all students

• Mon, March 18: Early Release at 1 pm

• Wed, March 20: Youth Risk Behavior Survey administered to 8th graders

• Thurs, March 21: Trimester 2 Report Cards Emailed (if not earlier)

• Tues, March 26: MCAS 8 ELA

• Wed, March 27: MCAS 8 ELA

Take care and have a great weekend!
Jim