Eye on the Junior High: 9/25/25

Posted Date: 9/25/25 (3:00 PM)

Good afternoon, RJ Grey Families:

I hope you are all well. I will see many of you tonight at Back to School Night. The first period begins at 6:45. Please build in some time for parking - all of the parking lots on campus are up for grabs, but please be prepared to walk a bit if you park at Parker-Damon or the high school. Your child should have brought home their class schedule, printed on colored paper. Please bring that with you tonight to know where and when your child's classes meet. If you can't locate that schedule among your child's belongings, or if you forget it, we will have a copy for you here, too. The goal of tonight is to connect your child's stories about their teachers to a face, learn a bit about the curriculum, and experience the space where your child spends more than 6 hours per day. I hope you enjoy tonight.

Last week, we had a close call with a car and a bicycle near the front circle of RJ Grey during morning drop-off. Cars should only enter the front circle after 7:50 am. Until that time, that space is reserved for bus drop-off. Ideally, we'd have all car traffic come down Charter Road and turn into the JH parking lot, follow the sidewalk, and unload students in the drop-off zone. If you've seen me trying to direct you to move forward, that's because we know that we get people through our parking lot most quickly when cars pull as far forward as possible (up to the cones or to the car right in front of you). If you see me gesturing to move ahead, or to stop and wait, I likely can see a student or staff member walking and ready to cross. Just like you, I want you to get on your way as quickly as possible, but I will always make sure that we're doing it safely. Thanks for driving slowly and being on alert when driving through our campus.

AB continues to partner with Cartwheel. This organization offers counseling sessions for students on an as-needed basis outside of school. One of the other benefits they bring is a series of seminars for parents and guardians. I am sharing the list of workshops they'll offer this year and I invite you to bookmark this page if one or more of the webinars look interesting to you. As a parent myself, several of the topics stand out as sessions that I would like to attend. I hope you find them interesting, as well.

Activity Fee Reminder
If your child is joining one of our clubs, we now have a $50 Activity Fee that helps support the costs of running our extracurricular programs. If your child has already joined a club, you can send a check for $50 (made out to Acton-Boxborough Regional School District) that they can drop off at the Main Office. You can also pay online here. If your family is in need of financial assistance, please submit a request for financial assistance according to the instructions on our District's website.

Take care,
Jim

Upcoming Dates

Monday, Sept 29: Early Release 1 pm
Monday, Sept 29: Minuteman High School Presentations to 8th graders
Thursday, Oct 2: No School - Yom Kippur
Monday, Oct 6: Library closed to students after school
Friday, Oct 10: (Optional) Pajama Day for Students
Monday, Oct 13: No School - Indigenous Peoples' Day

Transportation

Athletics

Student Resources

Eye on the Junior High: 9/25/25