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Good morning, RJ Grey Families:
I hope you are doing well. We've had a great week at RJ Grey. Students and teachers are working hard in the last few weeks of 2025. As we approach the holiday season, I know many families think about small gifts or tokens of appreciation for their child's teachers. I want to be clear that no RJ Grey teacher expects gifts, and no family should ever feel obligated to provide one! I would recommend, if you have a few moments, that a kind email or word of thanks to a teacher goes quite a long way, whether around the holidays or at any time of the year! If you are committed to giving a gift, please know that there are state ethics laws that limit gifts that teachers, coaches, and staff are permitted to receive. School staff cannot accept gifts from a single family that amount to $50 or more in value for the entire school year.
This week, I had the chance to observe several classes, one of which was Digital Literacy. The students talked openly about the social media apps they use (Roblox, Snapchat, Instagram, and others). The conversation in class centered around how students report users who use hate speech or otherwise act inappropriately. The timing of this lesson was coincidental to the same week that Australia passed a law about not allowing children under 16 years old to use some of the major social media apps including Tiktok, X, Instagram, YouTube, and Snapchat. What I take as the importance of this particular law is that the media companies are the ones who get in trouble if users under 16 use the apps.
I bring this up to our RJ Grey families, not because I think we should move to Australia, but to give you some power to know that other people are concerned about social media and its effects. I am one of those people! For my own 6th grade daughter, she does not have any social media. Much to her chagrin, she does not have a smartphone, either. She does have what I call a "dumb phone," however. It's a classic flip-phone that she doesn't tell her friends about because she's too embarrassed by it! We got it for her a few years ago because she would stay home alone in the mornings to wait for her bus, and since we don't have a landline, we wanted her to have something in case she needed to contact us. My wife and I (she's also an educator) are firmly planted in the camp of, "you're too young" to have access to a computer in your pocket at all times of day. And while I implicitly trust my daughter, I have seen too many issues that emerge from phones and social media in my professional life to allow it to invade my personal life. There certainly will be a time when we allow her more access to a device and other apps, but when we do that, it will come with expectations for use and a super clear understanding that, as her parents, we will review the contents of her phone on a regular basis. If you don't currently have norms in place for you to take a look at your child's cellphone on an ongoing basis, here is a resource I found online that might be a helpful starting place.
As I step down from my soapbox, please know that whatever decisions you make as families for the use of technology is a completely personal decision based on your own family structure, the maturity of your children, and other factors. Raising kids is hard! Please let us know if we can be helpful in talking about your child.
I hope you have a great weekend!
Jim
Monday, Dec 15: Early Release at 1 pm
Tuesday, Dec 23: Early Release (11:10) for Winter Vacation
Monday, Jan 5: School reopens for the New Year
Tuesday, Jan 6: School Council Meeting, 7 pm
Monday, Jan 12: Early Release at 1 pm
Tuesday, Jan 13: iReady ELA assessment for all students
Wednesday, Jan 14: Winter Band Concert, 7 pm |
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