Hi Everyone,
Last December was the first time I shared with families information about vaping (also referred to as “Juuling” after the most popular brand) - which involves the use of electronic cigarettes. More on what that is in a moment. By June, I felt compelled to revisit the topic because of the trends being reported in the news, as well as having had to address a handful of incidents that involved vaping at RJ Grey. Since that time, we actually haven’t encountered the increase in vaping-at-school incidents that we were bracing for, and were a bit worried about. That’s certainly been a bit of a relief and we are well aware that the ease with which individuals can mask/hide use of e-cigarettes is a major feature of this growing problem and we don’t want to be naive to the possibility that there could indeed be students at RJ Grey who are exposed to and/or are using e-cigarettes and simply successful at not getting caught. In the recent release by Emerson Hospital of the results from last year’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey which was taken last Spring by students in grades 6, 8, and 9-12 at A-B and other surrounding communities (11,000 students total), 28% of high school-age students reported having used e-cigarettes, along with 9% of middle school students in participating towns. It is clear that our community isn’t immune to this national trend amongst young people, which the FDA recently declared an epidemic. My motivation for returning to this topic via Grey Matters is not to incite panic amongst the parent population, but I also don’t think it would be an overreaction on my part to strongly encourage all of our families to more fully educate themselves on vaping/Juuling and to take that next step of having a conversation with their kids about this important health issue.
OK - so what are e-cigarettes and what is vaping/Juuling? A really good 2017 Boston Globe article on this subject included the following: “Electronic cigarettes are devices that utilize stored electricity to heat a liquid into vapors, which are then inhaled by the user….the liquid can be anything from a flavored water-type mixture to liquid nicotine to THC, the principal active element of marijuana.” As you can see in the above photo, most e-cigarettes look like a really long thumb drive, and are in fact often charged through a USB port. This new terrain is complicated by the fact that current technologies make them more readily available, usage is easier to mask, and marketing of the devices includes “fruit flavors” that offer the perception that vaping is a safe and risk-free endeavor. That’s where a good bit of education and messaging to counter those beliefs can hopefully prove helpful amongst our students. To that end, our Health and Life Skills classes have updated their lessons on substance use and abuse to include information about e-cigarettes and vaping, and we devoted a portion of a recent staff meeting to providing our faculty and staff with a bit of a primer on this subject so they can also support our school’s efforts. At home, the conversations you have with your children about your expectations can be influential, and at least your kids would then know that you’re aware of what’s going on despite your/our incredibly old age and surprise them given our tendency to be unfamiliar with all youth-oriented fads. And those conversations don’t have to be of the fire and brimstone variety. You might enter it by asking them what they’ve heard or know about it, and use what they share as entry points for including additional information and perspective about it. Along with the above Boston Globe article, here are some resources that can help you with your conversations:
Teen Vaping: What You Need to Know by the ChildMind Institute
A Resource Page on Vaping by the Massachusetts Dept. of Public Health
A short piece on CNN (a YouTube video) about vaping and teen use
A Resource Page by the American Academy of Pediatrics
As we develop more familiarity with this topic, we’re thinking about additional opportunities to help families learn more about vaping and e-cigarettes. Right now we’re considering a brief evening presentation in partnership with our School Resource Officer, or folding this topic into other conversations that might be planned around the release of the most recent Youth Risk Behavior Survey results. We’ll keep you posted when those plans are more developed. In the meantime, I hope the above information is useful for all of you.
Here’s some updates and reminders for the next few weeks:
The Fall Trimester closes on Wednesday, November 28th (right after Thanksgiving). There will likely be end-of-trimester assignments and assessments this week and next, so you might want to check in with your child(ren) about what is on their plates between now and the Thanksgiving Break.
7 Red’s annual Coat Drive continues, so if you have any coats (for adults or children), they can be dropped off in our Lobby.
For the Thanksgiving Break, we have a half-day of school on Wednesday, November 21 with dismissal at 11:06, and then we return to school the following Monday, November 26.
Winter sports will begin shortly after the Thanksgiving Break. Our winter sports program includes Boys and Girls Basketball teams (with separate teams for 7th and 8th grade), and Cheerleading. The tryout schedule will be posted on the RJ Grey Athletics page next week with start dates planned for shortly after the Thanksgiving Break. Starting this summer, we have shifted to an online signup for our athletic teams using a site called FamilyID. This process has taken the place of the paper “Green Forms” but still requires submission of an updated physical. You can view the tryout schedule (when it’s up) and review the FamilyID process on the Athletics page of our website.
Last week all families should have received an email with instructions on how to sign up for the annual parent-teacher conferences. You can also access the sign-up form through our website by clicking here. As I mentioned last week, one of the three conferences will be scheduled in the evening (January 3 from 5-8pm) and those slots will be filled on a first come-first served basis. We know that this means that not all families who prefer the evening conference can be scheduled for those options, and we hope that you’ll still be able to identify times that are possible for you. A friendly reminder that parents/guardians are not required to participate in these conferences, and many families who have attended team meetings elect not to sign up. We appreciate everyone’s patience as our Main Office staff begin processing the many requests that are being submitted over the next few weeks.
The annual RJ Grey musical is just around the corner! The students are working hard on this year’s production of Annie and we’re looking forward to another performance that showcases our students’ talents. Five performances are scheduled for the week of December 3rd, specifically on Thursday, December 6 (7pm), Friday, December 7 (7pm), Saturday, December 8 (2pm and 7pm), and Sunday, December 9 (2pm). Tickets are $15 and are will be available in the Junior High Main Office starting Monday, November 19. ABSAF holders are entitled to two free tickets and must pick up their tickets from the Main Office. This is always a great family-friendly event and we hope to see many A-B families there. As we begin to prepare for our annual school musical, I want to again share a link to one of my favorite episodes of the radio show This American Life. Entitled, “Fiasco!” this episode highlights a small-town production of Peter Pan that involved the use of flying apparatuses. Unlike our High School’s production of Mary Poppins a few years ago, their efforts involving the flying apparatus didn’t exactly go as planned, along with a few other mishaps that turned the show into a full-fledged fiasco. If you’ve got twenty minutes to spare, I encourage you to listen to this piece that apparently required Ira Glass to turn off his microphone during recording because of how hard he was laughing/snorting.
The Lost & Found bin at RJ Grey is now overflowing with a whole array of clothing. We’ve lined it up on a few tables to make it easier to sift through and we encourage families and students to take a quick look and see if there are any items that can make its way back to your home (ideally with the washing machine as the first stop). Any items not claimed before the Thanksgiving Break will be donated to charity.
Finally, I don’t want to finish this edition of Grey Matters without acknowledging Veteran’s Day which is this Monday. So I end with a thank you and a note of gratitude to members of our community who have or are still serving in our military, as well as their families who support them.
Have a great week, everyone.
Cheers,
