Grey Matters
A weekly blog by RJ Grey's principal Andrew Shen

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January 2019 - Posts

Hi Everyone,


In different classes, and in both grades, students at RJ Grey are taught skills and strategies that will help them evaluate the credibility and reliability of online sources, and thinking about how to identify sources for bias and accuracy.  As the online platform continues to serve as the primary entrypoint for individuals to search for and acquire information about the world around them, becoming a more thoughtful consumer of the not-so-regulated internet will be a valuable life skill for our kids.  Lucky for us that the recent New England victory over Kansas City in the AFC Championship game provides us with the perfect opportunity to show students how information online can be so easily manipulated by individuals to support a particular narrative or viewpoint, especially on Wikipedia - the free online encyclopedia where many students’ research for assignments often (and unfortunately) begin.  While I consider myself a loyal fan of the Patriots, the recent editing of the Wikipedia description of the AFC Championship Game to be the game “where one team gets to play the New England Patriots for a chance to play for the Super Bowl” (see photo to the right) is going a tad far.  To be sure, some of this bravado and boldness is understandable given that it’s borne from a level of success that may never again occur in our lifetimes, but that’s also led to some foolish decisions - like the Northeastern University student who last year added a tattoo of LII (Roman numerals for 52) to commemorate the Patriots’ sixth Super Bowl before the game was even played.  I wonder how much mental energy that young man spent this past year hoping that the Patriots reach and win this year’s Super Bowl so he can just add another I to his most recent tattoo and it becomes an easy fix to last year’s misstep.  While we’re on the subject of tattoos and reviewing evidence to verify claims and statements, I hope you will all forgive me for going on a slight tangent and offering a nod to one of the more bizarre news stories from last week by noting how having a tattoo of Richard Nixon’s face on your back does not, among other things, mean you get to claim to have been an advisor and aide for the former President’s campaign in the late 1960s.  Let’s all applaud my decision to include a screenshot of the Wikipedia page about the AFC Championship game instead of a photo of the aforementioned tattoo of the 37th President (which you can easily Google if you’re morbidly curious).  


A couple of notes and reminders for this week:


Many thanks to those involved with organizing and supervising last Friday’s Summer Fun in Winter event!  We had a lot of students attend the event, and many seemed to enjoy themselves.  Ms. Ahl and the Student Council officers put a great deal of work into the preparations, and thanks also to the many parents who donated food, along with volunteers Tracey Estabrook, Karen Finkelman, Melissa Clayton, Rebecca Carlson, Sheila Bauer and Mai Nguyen for staffing the snack table.  


A friendly reminder to families that we have our next early release scheduled for Thursday, February 7.  This will be a professional learning session for staff, and students will be dismissed at 11:06am.  Please plan accordingly.


This is a reminder to 7th grade families that we will be finishing our Signs of Suicide (SOS) lesson and screening tool to 7th grade teams this week.  The lesson will be delivered tomorrow (Monday) to 7 Blue students, and then to 7 Green students on Wednesday the 30th.


Now, two articles that I wanted to make mention of and pass along for you to consider reading should it be of interest to you.  First, as a follow up to my recent musings about managing screen time and social media usage by our kids, here is an article from Common Sense Media that provides an overview of a few new apps that are becoming popular amongst adolescents.  I appreciate this site’s efforts to keep families updated since awareness of the next “big thing” is a perpetual uphill climb. Once you get accustomed to one social media platform, twenty new ones appear - some with useful applications, and others for less-than-noble purposes.  The second article is a piece in the New York Times by Lisa Damour that I was excited to read on the subject of helping teens manage social conflicts.  I’ve felt as both a parent and a school principal, that this particular aspect of supporting teenagers has gotten trickier and a bit messier, and a really important area for us to explore together.  It’s become a bit harder to discern which conflicts and moments of hardship warrant more direct parental intervention, and which are the ones where it’s appropriate and even helpful for the adults to remain on the sidelines.  Still observing and supporting, to be sure, but not solving. Several years ago, child psychologist Dan Kindlon warned against what he calls our “discomfort with discomfort” and argued that if kids aren’t allowed to experience painful feelings, they won’t develop “psychological immunity.”  He likens this process to the body’s immune system. He explains, “you have to be exposed to pathogens, or your body won’t know how to respond to an attack. Kids also need exposure to discomfort, failure, and struggle” and that also includes what the Times article refers to as social friction and social injury.  It’s easy, and tempting, and certainly understandable, for many of us to develop an instantaneous and emotional reaction to unpleasantness that our kids may encounter, especially social situations that sting and are common at this age due to the constantly shifting landscape that defines these teenage years.  Not sure how this piece will land with each of you, but at the very least it offers some food for thought, and some language and vocabulary, to help with conversations you may have with other parents and friends.


Finally, we had our latest installment of Poetry Fridays at the end of last week, with Ms. Carter (8 Red Social Studies) offering us a reading of Robert Frost’s poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”, a poetic acknowledgement of the recent snowfall that has “finally” arrived this winter season.  Click here if you’d like to read the poem as well.  


Have a great week, everyone.


Cheers,










Posted by ashen  On Jan 27, 2019 at 3:21 PM
  

Hi Everyone,


I’m currently multi-tasking, writing this week’s edition of Grey Matters while watching the Patriots play in the AFC Championship game.  If New England struggles in the game, I’ll need to proofread this newsletter a few extra times to make sure I haven’t mistakenly transcribed whatever it is that I’ve shouted at the television.  While many of you might be watching the game after spending the morning plowing and shoveling out from last night’s storm, I will admit, a bit sheepishly, that I am watching the game after spending the morning going for a run along the beach.  Melisa and I were fortunate to have the opportunity to take advantage of the long weekend, and a cousin willing to stay with our kids, to take a quick trip to a warmer climate. When we took this same trip last year, our daughter Addison wrote us a note telling us how she’d miss us and how she felt a bit “abandoned” by her mother and father.  This year, no such note and really no sense of loss and sadness expressed by our kids. The cynical part of me suspects that one reason for this is that our three angels were themselves plotting a weekend free from our watchful eye when it comes to screen time and their access to technology. Melisa and I continue to have mixed results with our approach to managing screen time and overall reliance on technology, including a recent mini-meltdown by yours truly that included my declaring a blanket ban on all technology on the second floor of our home (and then an hour later my finding one of the kids huddled in the basement with an iPad saying, “you didn’t say we couldn’t be down here in the basement!”).  As I continue to clumsily navigate this particular terrain I get easily drawn to articles that offer all types of opinions, strategies, and viewpoints about how to help kids develop a healthy relationship with technology. Here’s two recent articles that advance viewpoints that I’m going to need time to digest and think about: first, a piece at NPR.org that profiles a new book by Temple University professor Jordan Shapiro who, among other things, is advocating for kids to be starting on social media at a younger age as part of “leaning in to parenting your wired child.” (I’m definitely gonna have a hard time with that one…)  The second is an article in Scientific American inspired by a paper out of the University of Oxford that presents data to suggest that worry and concern over the negative impact of screen time on adolescents is overstated.  So far, no reason for me to throw anything at the television, and hoping it stays that way.


Here’s some updates and reminders for the next few weeks:


Our school district is currently going through its annual process for building a proposed budget for the following school year (2019-2020) and presenting it to the School Committee and the community at-large.  Superintendent Light has already made a few initial presentations that outline include the requests for new positions and programs that we’d like to include as part of next year’s budget.  Our efforts to provide the budget story for next year always culminates in Budget Saturday, which is a daylong presentation to the School Committee that includes details of the proposed budget and reasons behind new requests.  Budget Saturday will be this coming Saturday, January 26 from 8:30am to 3:00pm in the Junior High Library and is open to the public.  If you can’t make it, but would like to review the documents outlining our budget proposal for next year, you can find them here.  


A friendly reminder to families that we have our next early release scheduled for Thursday, February 7.  This will be a professional learning session for staff, and students will be dismissed at 11:06am.  Please plan accordingly.


Our Exploratory rotation (i.e. Art, Music/Drama, Minuteman Tech, Digital Literacy) will be switching after this Friday. Students who were enrolled in two of the four Exploratories for the first half of the year will now switch to the other two for the remainder of the school year.  


This is a reminder to 7th grade families that we will be starting our Signs of Suicide (SOS) lesson and screening tool to 7th grade teams.  The lesson will be delivered on Tuesday to 7 Red students, and then to 7 Gold students on Thursday the 24th.  Students on 7 Blue and 7 Green will participate the following week on the 28th and 30th. Also, a final reminder that the Eliot Community Human Services will conduct a suicide prevention workshop for members of our adult community on Tuesday, January 29th at 6pm, also in our Junior High Library.  QPR - Question, Persuade and Refer is a community-wide program that teachers the warning signs of suicide and an effective emergency response. If you are interested in attending, please contact Dr. Deborah Garfield at [email protected].  


Finally, we had our latest installment of Poetry Fridays at the end of last week, with staff member Valery Gransewicz offering a special tribute to American poet and Pulitzer Prize winner Mary Oliver, who passed away last Thursday.  There were many well-deserved tributes for and about Mary Oliver that appeared via social media and news outlets, including this Washington Post piece, and this Postscript in The New Yorker.  On Friday, Ms. Gransewicz read A Voice From I Don’t Know Where.  Many of the tributes on social media posted her piece, Wild Geese, which I have also included below.  


Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.


Have a great week, everyone.


Cheers,

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Posted by ashen  On Jan 27, 2019 at 3:20 PM
  

Hi Everyone,


An article popped up in my social media feed this morning entitled, “Recipes to keep you occupied and well-fed on a snow day.”  I smiled, and selfishly thought, “don’t need to read that, and hoping I won’t have reason to for the rest of this year.”  The lack of snow this year has now become the storyline, and some have even begun to call it a snow drought and wondering if it’s still not a matter of if, but a matter of when, and then how much (in sort of pay now, or pay later, mentality).  Not being one who participates much in winter-oriented activities such as skiing or ice skating, my only current reason for lamenting the lack of snow is that I think some well-timed snowfall this afternoon could enhance the home field advantage that one hopes the New England Patriots have over the accustomed-to-warm-and-sunny-weather Los Angeles Chargers.  Given that this edition of Grey Matters will land in your respective Inboxes after the conclusion of the game, hopefully the cold temperatures and inspired play by the hometown team was enough for a victory over the Chargers.  


Here’s some updates and reminders for the next week or so:

Interim reports for this current Winter Trimester will be emailed to families at the end of this week.  Please remember that this includes any email addresses currently listed on your child’s Emergency Card. Not all students will necessarily receive an interim and if your child does receive one or more, please take a moment to review the feedback and information with him/her/them.  If you have any questions about those interims, I would encourage you to start a dialogue with your child’s teacher.


The Winter Band Concert is this Tuesday at 7pm in the auditorium.


There is no school on Monday, January 21st for the Martin Luther King, Jr. long weekend.  Per our Homework Policy, there will be no homework assigned for that long weekend.  


I received this note about an opportunity for students interested in coding and wanted to pass it along:  The Girls Who Code club is starting up again this Spring for AB students in 6th through 8th grade. Hosted at the Acton Memorial Library, this free, nationally recognized program is a fun introduction to computer science and technology careers, where girls learn coding skills and create a small group project together using Scratch, JavaScript, or Python. This year's curriculum will focus on beginners, so no experience is necessary. Lessons are co-taught by high-school student volunteers and an adult facilitator. Space is limited to 20 students. Participants must have access to a laptop computer that they can bring to meetings. The club meets at the Acton Memorial Library from 9am to 11am on Saturdays, February through June. Interested students should pre-register here.  Questions? AB students can email [email protected]


Here’s an important message about RJ Grey Yearbooks. Families have received notifications earlier this year directly from our Yearbook publisher about options to order a yearbook.  Our book this year consists of 70+ colored pages full of 7th and 8th graders participating in school activities, clubs, sports, and special events. The hardcover book will include survey responses, fun photos, student art and poetry, and everything in between. The deadline to purchase yearbooks is coming up - Tuesday, January 22.  The cost of the book is $37 and can be ordered one of two ways: The preferred way is to purchase the book online, by going to this link and entering our school ID: 13545.  When you get directed to our school’s page, click the “buy a yearbook” option on the left and then (1) put in the quantity and click “buy these items”; (2) click “buy these items for a student” and type in your child's name; you will then be prompted to select the student from our school's database; (3) pay by credit card and then save your email receipt for record purposes. If you prefer not to order online, students may also go the more traditional route and order a yearbook with cash or check made out to RJ Grey. They should complete this form and bring payment to Main Office, to the attention of Mr. Lewis. Important: Please make sure to include a note with the student’s name, grade, and homeroom teacher’s name. We know this is something your child will enjoy receiving in June. We hope also that years from now your child will look back at their RJ Grey experience with fond memories and know this yearbook will be a way for them to do just that!  


Now a message from me about yearbooks and other school-related costs.  If the cost of the yearbook presents a financial hardship for your family, please do not hesitate to contact us and we can have a discrete and simple conversation, and we always make things work.  I’d like to use our discussion about yearbook orders to offer a general but important reminder to all families that we never want the cost of any school-related program or activity to prevent a student from fully accessing important school programs or experiences. It is inevitable that we will need to attach a fee to some programs, trips, or optional things that are “extra” and if there are moments when cost does present a dilemma for your family, I hope you’ll feel comfortable reaching out to your child’s counselor and/or Assistant Principal who will be happy to work with you on a solution.  


Thank you to the many 7th grade families who have already submitted their signed consent forms regarding our upcoming plans to present the Signs of Suicide (SOS) lesson and screening tool to our 7th grade teams.  We had about 30 parents/guardians attend last Monday’s information session with Riverside Trauma Center and I hope those in attendance found it useful.  The signed consent forms were due this past Friday, January 11 and we will continue to accept forms from families this week.  Please also remember that students who don’t submit the consent form will be scheduled to participate in the lesson but not the screening tool.  We are scheduled to deliver the SOS lesson on January 22, 24, 28, and 30 (one team per day).  7 Red will be scheduled for January 22, 7 Gold will participate on January 24, 7 Blue will be on January 28, and finally 7 Green will participate on January 30.  I will send all families a note later this week to remind everyone of this schedule and the resources available to families.  

Also, another important reminder that the Eliot Community Human Services (with a location in Concord), with a Healthy Teen Initiative Grant from the AB United Way, will conduct a suicide prevention workshop for members of our adult community on Tuesday, January 29 at 6:00pm, also in our Junior High Library.  QPR - Question, Persuade and Refer is a community-wide program that teachers the warning signs of suicide and an effective emergency response.  People trained in QPR learn how to recognize the warning signs of a suicide crisis and how to question, persuade and refer someone for help.  If you are interested in attending, please contact Dr. Deborah Garfield at [email protected].  


Have a great week, everyone.

Cheers,

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Posted by ashen  On Jan 13, 2019 at 11:10 AM
  

Hi Everyone,


Usually, by this point in the school year, I will have already made several (whiny) references in Grey Matters to the cold temperatures and some impact that the season’s snowfall has had on my house.  By now I’m also usually consistently wearing snow pants and arctic boots during morning traffic duty.  The wear and tear that (normal) New England winters has on my soul then leads to me discussing with all of you my long standing dream of living in San Francisco and enjoying the food and more temperate weather.  Things are a bit different this year. First, and I’m not complaining, there hasn’t been more than a dusting of snow except for those couple of inches in mid-November - and even that accumulation of snow melted within a few days.  And even with current forecasts calling for about an inch of snow tomorrow night, the ten day forecast hovers in the 30 to 40 degree range.  Thus, my snow pants and boots are still on standby in my office.  Moreover, the less frigid weather has made me think about San Francisco less frequently, and the recent wildfires that choked the city with smoke, along with that region’s growing challenges with wealth disparity and affordability (and the occasional earthquake), has me thinking more favorably about our neck of the woods.  One reason I am bringing up the weather and snow is that even with the mild(er) and stretch of snow-free days, our Ski and Board Club will still have its first session at Wachusett Mountain this Tuesday (hooray for snow-making technology).  A final important reminder to Ski and Board Club families that equipment is not allowed on buses.  Most families bring the equipment at morning drop off, and a few families bring the equipment to school later in the day (it all gets stored in the auditorium).  Please be sure to have the ski and board equipment organized for a speedy drop off in the morning.


And while I personally would welcome a school year free of snow delays and snow days, that’s probably not realistic.  If and when we do have some messy precipitation, our District sends out automated calls to families with delay/cancellation notifications.  Along with the automated calls, families can also utilize different social media platforms for that and other information as well.  Acton-Boxborough has both an official Twitter feed as well as a Facebook page where announcements and reminders will be posted.  If you aren’t already following RJ Grey’s Twitter feed, please also consider joining our 763 other followers.  On that feed, we’ll “re-tweet” important District announcements along with our own school-based reminders and updates.  


Here’s a few additional reminders and update for the coming two weeks:


I need to make a correction from last week about the Winter Band Concert, which is Tuesday, January 15 at 7pm in the Auditorium.  I mistakenly listed it as Wednesday the 16th, my apologies - I believe the Band Director, Mr. Arsenault, has sent the correct dates to families of Band students.   The Chorus and Strings Concert is Wednesday, January 23 at 7pm in the Auditorium.  


A reminder to students and families that our after school clubs and activities welcome new members throughout the year! You can review the club and activity options on our website at this page.


There is no school Monday, January 21 in recognition of the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday.  


I hope 7th grade families have had a chance to review the letter that I sent to parents/guardians last Wednesday regarding our plans to conduct the Signs of Suicide (SOS) lesson and the Brief Screening for Adolescent Depression to students in 7th grade later this month.   We require every family to return a signed consent form (included with the original email and also sent via US Postal Mail) from every student’s parent/guardian indicating the student’s level of participation.  Please send that form in with your child as soon as possible. If you need another copy of the consent form, please let me know. For parent/guardians who would like to learn more about the SOS lesson and preview the materials that are included in the lesson before deciding on their child’s level of participation, please consider attending the Parent Information session that we have scheduled for this Tuesday, January 8 at 6pm in the Junior High Library.  This session will be led by Nanci Ginty, a staff member from Riverside Trauma Center who has worked closely with Acton-Boxborough over the past three years.  


Separately, and in support of our efforts with student mental health, Eliot Community Human Services (with a location in Concord), with a Healthy Teen Initiative Grant from the AB United Way, will conduct a suicide prevention workshop for members of our adult community on Tuesday, January 29 at 6pm, also in our Junior High Library.  QPR - Question, Persuade and Refer is a community-wide program that teachers the warning signs of suicide and an effective emergency response.  People trained in QPR learn how to recognize the warning signs of a suicide crisis and how to question, persuade and refer someone for help.  Please note that while it has a shared goal, the Parent Information session about our SOS has a very different focus, and is narrowly focused on providing families with an overview of our plans with students.  


Finally, it’s a pleasure to highlight 8th grader Sean Nelson, who is January’s Artist of the Month. Sean’s work is our first Artist of the Month foray into the
relatively new art form of 
drone photography.  When asked about things that influence/inform the artwork he likes to make, Sean noted, “Nature and architecture definitely give me inspiration for my photography. I have taken drone photos of the beach, lighthouses, and the mountains, and have also taken drone photos in Acton
Center. I like taking photos of memories, or things that intrigue me, and things that other people can relate to.”  If you’d like to check out some of Sean’s work,
you can click here.  (As of Sunday morning, there are a few hiccups that need
to be fixed with Sean’s Artist of the Month profile page, but hopefully it will be
all set by later today, if not Monday morning)


Have a great week, everyone.


Cheers,


Posted by ashen  On Jan 06, 2019 at 9:19 AM
  

Hi Everyone,

Welcome back from Winter Break, and welcome to 2019.  Our family avoided any long-distance travel over the break, and our time in and around our home can be best summarized by our youngest son Parker’s recent declaration that, “there’s no such thing as eating too much chocolate.”  In between too-long stretches of eating things with high concentrations of sugar, a vast array of bread products, and a whole lot of cheese, I used the break as an opportunity to catch up on a bit of reading - both for pleasure, and to stay on top of topics and ideas that might be directly related to our shared world of parenting, education, and hoping to stay somewhat current with the lives of our children.  This reading goal of mine was aided by holiday gifts from a few good friends, one of whom gave me a copy of Educated, by Tara Westover, and another friend who gave me Tommy Orange’s There There, both of which are on quite a few “Top Ten” lists.  While I can’t easily share with everyone my copies of those books, I can share links to several pieces that may be of interest to some or many of you.  In no particular order:




Two articles on the rapidly
growing industry of ESports (competitive video gaming),which is quickly nearing the $1 billion mark, from new efforts by organizations and businesses to create a “Little League” equivalent for this new arena, to e-sports scholarships now being offered by colleges and universities across the country.  


On strategies and tips for communicating effectively with your teenager, this New York Times article offers this psychologists’ take on how to frame the advice and guidance you hope your kids might consider.  

This is a
pretty intense New York Times piece from late October that presents growing concerns by technologists about the impact of smartphones on the healthy development of young people, and a related Washington Post piece that looks at why “cellphones and sleepovers are such a bad mix” and makes a recommendation for how families (especially sleepover hosts) may want to adapt their approach to supervision of these get togethers.  

Finally, the
Deseret News is a newspaper based out of Salt Lake City, Utah and they just completed a yearlong series, Generation Vexed, about why and in what ways teens are struggling with record levels of anxiety.  This series includes over twenty pieces that examines the topic from a variety of angles and perspectives - gender, young children to college-aged children, debates about medication and other treatments, and strategies for families (to name a few).  


As we return from the Break hopefully you can still find a few moments of quiet here and there to read any of the above pieces that pique your interest.  


An important note about this week: our last set of parent-teacher conferences is scheduled for the evening of Thursday, January 3, from 5pm to 8pm.  This is our second year with an evening session and I want to provide a reminder of what this means for our school schedule on Thursday and Friday.  


  1. Thursday, January 3 is a full day of school from 8:00am to 2:36pm.  

  2. Parent-teacher conferences scheduled for Thursday, January 3 will be held during the 5pm to 8pm window.  

  3. The following day, Friday, January 4, is an early release day for all students and staff.  School will be from 8:00am to 11:06am, and buses will be available for their “regular routes.”  Please note that students at the High School and the elementary schools have do not have early release schedules for that day.  


Here’s additional updates and reminders for the first few weeks of January, and then a bit of important information about our annual Signs of Suicide (SOS) program for 7th grade students.  


There is no school for all Acton-Boxborough students on Monday, January 21 for the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday.  


The RJG Winter Band Concert is scheduled for the evening of Wednesday, January 16, and the Winter Chorus and String Ensemble Concert is scheduled for the evening of Wednesday, January 23.  Both events begin at 7pm and taking place in the RJ Grey auditorium.  


The very popular Ski and Board Club has its first session next Tuesday, January 8.  Please remember that ski and board gear can not be brought on AB buses in the morning, and that means on Tuesdays Ski and Board Club members are dropped off in the morning with quite a bit of gear.  For those of you planning to drop off kids and gear in the lower parking lot, it would be immensely helpful if the gear was organized in a way that supported a speedy drop-off.  The best case scenario is if you have those ski bags that package everything up all nice and are easy to carry. I’ll do my best to help kids with getting gear out of the trunk, and anything that you can do in advance would be much appreciated.  There are also some families who choose to drop off their child’s ski/boarding gear later in the day and bring it to the auditorium where it is stored.


We had our latest round of Everyday Leaders take place right before Winter Break. It was great to spend some time with a number of our students and see how the year is going, and to also get some of their initial feedback on different parts of the RJ Grey experience.  Congratulations to this group of Everyday Leaders: Robin Zhang, Anthony Cronin, Nisha Bhat, Miller Lillie, Nakisa Razban, Lily Newcombe, Emma Lent, Ethan Xia, Grace O’Sullivan, Noam Worcel, and Anna Campbell.  


I want to provide families with another preview of a letter that families of 7th grade students will be receiving later this week by email as well as US Postal Mail, that discusses our school’s implementation of the Signs of Suicide (SOS) lesson and mental health screening tool.  Before the Winter Break, I provided an overview of our annual Signs of Suicide lesson and the Brief Screening for Adolescent Depression to students in 7th and 9th grade. The Signs of Suicide Prevention Program is a universal program for middle and high school students that has proven effective in helping students who are concerned about themselves or a friend.  It is the only school-based suicide-prevention curriculum listed by the Substance Abuse and Medical Health Services Administration (SAMSHA) in its National Registry of Evidence-Based Programs and Practices that addresses suicide risk and depression.  At RJ Grey, the program is scheduled this year to take place in 7th grade team classes during the week of January 21 and January 28, with two teams scheduled per week.  For parents and guardians who would like to preview the Signs of Suicide lesson and the video used during the lesson, we are hosting an information session on Tuesday, January 8 at 6pm in the Junior High Library.  Joining us that evening will be a program coordinator from the Riverside Trauma Center.  At that session we typically provide an overview of the program and answer questions that parents/guardians might have. Families of 7th grade students will be receiving an email letter tomorrow (Wednesday) about the SOS lesson and mental health screening tool, along with a consent form that we need parents and guardians to return by Friday, January 11th.  Families will also receive a copy of the letter via US Postal Mail on Thursday or Friday.  The consent form allows you to select your child’s level of participation in the program.


Separately, and in support of our efforts with student mental health, Eliot Community Human Services (with a location in Concord), with a Healthy Teen Initiative Grant from the AB United Way, is continuing to offer suicide prevention workshops for members of our adult community, with another session scheduled for Tuesday, January 29 from 6:00pm to 8:00pm, also in our Junior High Library.  QPR - Question, Persuade and Refer is a community-wide program that teachers the warning signs of suicide and an effective emergency response.  People trained in QPR learn how to recognize the warning signs of a suicide crisis and how to question, persuade and refer someone for help.  Please note that while it has a shared goal, the Parent Information session about our SOS has a very different focus, and is narrowly focused on providing families with an overview of our plans with students.  In the coming weeks I’ll provide a few more reminders about this opportunity and encouragement to attend.  


Finally, before the start of conferences on December 18 we had our annual Staff Appreciation Luncheon which was hosted by our amazing PTSO.  Educators are no different when it comes to our stomachs being the quickest way into our hearts.  Par for the course, the food that was made and donated by our families was much appreciated and quickly consumed.  Many thanks to parents Tracey Estabrook and Mai Nguyen for taking on the coordination, planning, and set up of this event, and the many families who contributed to an inviting and filling spread.  


Have a great week, everyone.  Welcome back.


Cheers,

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Posted by ashen  On Jan 01, 2019 at 9:11 AM
  
 
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