Hi Everyone,
I am going to describe something I used to do when I myself was a middle schooler and I am not quite sure where it will land on the embarrassment scale. In the home where I grew up, we didn’t have cable television until my late high school years. Through my early teen years, along with the one family television in the living room, my mom had a small handheld black & white television that she kept in the kitchen. Whenever I thought I could get away with it, I would swipe the handheld television and bring it to my room so I could watch, among other shows, episodes of Baywatch, the timeless television series about a team of lifeguards dedicated to saving lives while perpetually dressed in undersized swimwear. This was before broadband so I had to figure out how to use some aluminum foil on the antennae to improve the reception in my room, though I don’t share this story as evidence of my ingenuity and problem-solving skills. And to be clear, my interest in Baywatch as a 13-year old was not because I had become a loyal fan of American acting legend David Hasselhoff from his days on Knight Rider. I am offering this somewhat awkward personal story to all of you to break the ice and in service of a more challenging parenting topic that I think, despite the discomfort that is attached, is helpful and appropriate to introduce -- and that’s the subject of internet pornography. As my too-much-information Baywatch story speaks to, fascination with and curiosity about sex is certainly not a new aspect of adolescence. For many teens it’s often one of the newer and interesting subjects to learn more about either on their own or with peers. Pornography is also not a new dimension of modern society, but what is fundamentally different is that access to it used to require at least some modicum of effort. Now, anyone at any age with a smartphone can readily call it up at any time of the day for free. Please know that I raise the issue of internet porn not with an interest in offering moral or legal commentary. While opinions about pornography in general may vary, I would be surprised if any of us thinks that guidance about sex and relationships for young adolescents should come courtesy of internet pornography. And yet there is more evidence (including a few of my own school principal anecdotes from the past couple of years) that a portion of the informal education young people are receiving on this subject comes in the form of sexually explicit online material. This exposure could skew not only their understanding of sexual activity, but also of the language and rituals involved with the things that are newer to them like flirtation, courtship, and dating. The material is sometimes stuff they discover on their own - either by accident or on purpose, or that’s shared with them by peers. With that in mind, I want to suggest that though the idea of talking with our kids about things associated with sex can already be an uncomfortable one for many of us, you might need to strongly consider how you will also fold information about internet porn into those conversations.
I was originally planning on raising this topic later in the school year once newer families know me a bit better. Since half of you have kids at RJ Grey who only four months ago were students in elementary school I was also a tad nervous about making your heads implode. I accelerated the timing of when I would raise this issue mostly because of a recent article that I came across this past week by Kate Post in the Washington Post called, “A scared parent’s guide to those awkward (but necessary) conversations about Internet porn”, and is the one I plan to use to help me prepare for the conversation I am committed to having with my own kids. I haven’t had that talk yet, I am nervous about it, but I’m going to do it and I’ve got some ideas about when and where (see below). The author of this article does a really nice job framing the issue in easy-to-access language, and offers practical suggestions for how to approach a conversation with your kids. She reminds us that the conversation doesn’t have to be perfect, nor particularly lengthy, to be effective and provide entry points for future conversations. Reading the piece reaffirmed for me the value of trying to introduce to RJ Grey families this issue with a bit of humor and vulnerability, along with direct and honest information about the internet content that is a more common part of the landscape in which our kids are learning and discovering. While this edition of Grey Matters is my first foray into raising the issue of internet porn, it was a year ago this week that I brought up the growing complexity around the broader conversations we need to consider having with our kids about romance, sex, consent and healthy relationships. Last year, the inspiration was the heavy media coverage of the nomination hearings for then-Supreme Court candidate Kavanaugh. At that time, I noted that the larger public discourse could be viewed as an opportunity for families to provide direct guidance about the power and impact of certain words and behaviors, and clear explanations about what ethical, kind, and respectful behavior looks like. I am inclined to believe that the conversations I have been having with my kids on those subjects might also offer natural opportunities to introduce messaging about internet pornography and how that material might collide and conflict with our family’s ideas around respectful and healthy relationships, and appropriate expectations. Rather than turning to my kids one night and abruptly declaring, “ok, we’re gonna talk about internet pornography for five minutes and I need you to listen,” I’m predicting that I’ll find more success (and experience less humiliation) by adding that material to conversations already underway about relationships. To assist families who were interested last year in these conversations, I introduced them to the organization Making Caring Common, an initiative based at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education that is dedicated to “helping educators, parents and communities raise children who are caring and responsible to their communities.” As part of that introduction I included this brief article by Dr. Richard Weissbourd. Focusing specifically on sexual harassment and misogyny this piece offers parents strategies for inviting their children into a conversation that can be tricky to initiate. Making Caring Common also has a resource page entitled, “Teens and Ethical Romantic Relationships” that includes several resources, handouts and guides for parents and schools who want to help adolescents develop comfort and skill in establishing healthy relationships with peers, romantic or otherwise. To be sure, not all of what is included may fully resonate with you, but perhaps it offers you some materials that are useful. Even though this week’s Grey Matters may have thrown you for a loop or been a bit jarring in terms of the subject, I’m very much hoping that it’s received by all of you with a clear sense of the good intentions and goals that motivated me to write it. And more importantly, that the Baywatch story won’t lead to my being on the receiving end of odd looks from all of you for the rest of the year.
A few announcements and reminders for the next couple of weeks:
You will recall that we had plans to conduct our first of two annual ALICE drills two weeks ago, and then we made the decision to postpone that drill because of other priorities that developed. We have rescheduled the ALICE drill to take place at the end of this coming week. I will be sure to send out a note to families shortly after the exercise is completed.
A reminder to 8th grade families that Minuteman Technical High School will be visiting RJ Grey this Tuesday and Wednesday to provide students with a brief overview of the school and the application process. Because the town of Boxborough is no longer a member of the Minuteman district, there is a different process for Boxborough students and families interested in a vocational route next year. Attending the Minuteman presentation still makes sense for Boxborough students given that it could still be the right option for them, and please stay tuned for additional details about the process and options for exploring additional vocational programs. For any families who want to know more about Minuteman Tech, I would encourage you to email your child's counselors.
Two calendar reminders for this Thursday and next Wednesday The Junior High and High School have our first Early Release day this Thursday, October 3, and staff will then participate in professional learning for the remainder of the day. Dismissal for students is at 11:10am at the Junior High and all standard bus routes will be available at that time. Please note that the Late Bus will not be available that day. I would encourage families to discuss and confirm with their child plans for this early release and expectations regarding transportation and post-release activities. Next week there will be no school on Wednesday, October 9 for Yom Kippur.
Finally, I hope those of you who attended last week’s Back to School Night found the evening to be informative and valuable. Congratulations to parents Becki Norris and Jennifer Spadano-Gasbarro for their election to this year’s School Council. The level of parent and family support that we have in Acton-Boxborough is no secret, and we know that partnering with all of you is central to a successful school year. Along with connecting with teachers by email or phone, please remember that we have a “team meeting” option that is also available to families. Teams have, about once a week, a period where parents/guardians can schedule a 20-minute meeting to connect with their child’s team teachers. This is an opportunity for some families to share information and concerns, and ask questions, and for teachers (and the team counselor) to do the same. The availability of appointments usually ebbs and flows over the course of the year, so during busy periods the next available appointment is a few weeks out. If you are interested in scheduling an appointment, you can email our Registrar Lena Jarostchuk ([email protected]) or call her at extension x3330.
Have a great week, everyone.
Cheers,
ashen
Hi Everyone,
Last school year was our first with a later start time in the morning, having shifted from 7:30am to 8:00am. I was excited for this change, and pleased that what started as a community conversation resulted in an actual change in practice that has been good for kids on a number of levels. However, I also shared with families last February that with a later start time, our tardiness rates that first year went in the opposite direction of what I was predicting, nearly doubling what we had the previous year. We never came to a definitive conclusion about why we experienced such a dramatic increase, whether it was a change in traffic patterns, more complications in family schedules, or a substantial change in sleep patterns. My hope, naively or not, is that with one year of an 8:00am start time under our collective belts, any logistical challenges that contributed to student tardiness might be less of a factor. While it’s still too early in this school year to notice any concerning patterns, it’s not too late to ask our families to work with us to make sure students more often than not get to school ahead of the morning bell so they can begin the day more grounded. Rest assured that we know there will be times throughout the year when morning routines have hiccups - planned and unplanned - where a student might arrive late to school, and that’s life and to be expected. The challenge and concern is when those late arrivals becomes a bit more habitual and casual. We also know the occasional absence within a given school year is also to be expected for many students. We certainly appreciate that, besides absences for sickness, there may be times when a family needs to make plans that takes their kids out of school but we still want to emphasize that keeping those absences to a minimum is in the best interest of the students. On the issue of absences, I want to also mention that when absences do accumulate for an individual student, we are required to send home a letter with an update about total absences for the school year. Specifically, when a student reaches 7 absences, excused and unexcused, a letter needs to be sent to parents/guardians (with the same happening at 14 days, 21 days, etc.). Please know that even in circumstances where we are aware of contributing factors like a long-term illness, or a combination of other things, we still need to send those letters. While these letters can simply be seen as part of a standard notification practice, it may also offer the opportunity to connect with us about any larger challenges that may exist. If in your home there is an increase in tardiness or absences that you see as less about logistics and potentially related to struggles or concerns with/about school, please don’t hesitate to reach out to your child’s counselor to begin a conversation about how we can work together on those issues.
Back to School Night is this Thursday evening at 7pm (6:35pm if your child takes the Band, Chorus or String Ensemble electives and you want to meet the teachers). Each of you will have a schedule for that evening emailed to you. We have three 7th grade parents who so far have expressed interest in the two open School Council positions, and therefore we will have ballots that evening for each of you to fill out. If you’d also like to submit your name for the School Council election, there’s still time since the deadline is tomorrow (Monday) at noon. As a reminder, the role of the School Council is to review and discuss various aspects of the school's activities and goals, and offer advice and guidance about different topics that may emerge during the year. The Council will meet seven times this year, on Monday evenings at 6:30pm (the first will be October 7). If you have any interest, please submit a short (4-6 sentences max) paragraph about yourself to me by the noon deadline. We look forward to seeing many of you there!
Here are some important reminders and notes for the next few weeks:
I want to thank everyone for their patience and support last Thursday after one of our school buses was in a traffic accident that resulted in the fatality of the motorcyclist involved. An incredibly difficult situation on so many levels, and numerous people were involved in responding. In particular, the families of the athletes who were traveling on the bus were instrumental at the accident itself, along with our efforts on Friday to make sure the students were properly supported. Because our attention was redirected to this incident, we made the decision to postpone the ALICE drill that we had originally scheduled for last Friday. Once we identify a new window of time for this drill, I will send out a quick update to families.
Picture Day is this Friday, September 27. Students have or will receive an order form to bring home to their parent/guardian. Students who plan to order photos should bring the order form (and payment) on Friday. If your child forgets the form, don’t panic - the forms can always be submitted afterwards. Regardless of whether students order a package of photos, all students will have their photos taken so they can be included in the yearbook. If you have any questions, please contact David Lawrence at [email protected].
An important reminder that there is NO SCHOOL on Monday, September 30 for Rosh Hashanah. Later that week the Junior High and High School will have our first Early Release day on Thursday, October 3, and staff will then participate in professional learning for the remainder of the day. Dismissal for students is at 11:10am at the Junior High and all standard bus routes will be available at that time. Please note that the Late Bus will not be available that day. I would encourage families to discuss and confirm with their child plans for this early release and expectations regarding transportation and post-release activities. On the following week, there will be no school on Wednesday, October 9 because it is Yom Kippur, and then no school on Monday, October 14 for Columbus Day Weekend.
Finally, as Melisa and I prepare to attend another one of my childrens’ athletic events later today (the 8th one amongst the three kids this weekend, for those who might be counting, which is probably just me), and our Junior High athletic programs are now well under way, I wanted to offer encouragement to all of us to be continually mindful of how to be a supportive and thoughtful sports parent. There is an intensity to youth sports today that can unfortunately dilute the many benefits that would typically be a part of the experience of being on a team and participating in lively competition. On that note, I wanted to share a recent Boston Globe article about the increasing physical risks and significant growth in “overuse injuries” that result in specializing in a single sport, and often playing that sport year-round. I share that article not in an attempt to wag my finger at anyone, and instead with the goal of offering food for thought on a trend that many of us in the community probably have witnessed or ourselves experienced. As for what the kids are hopefully getting out of their involvement with sports, I share every year an excerpt of a letter written by the father-in-law of a good friend to the players assigned to the Little League baseball team that he was assigned to coach in the Spring of 1977. As we enter this Fall season of sports, and many of us are standing on the sidelines tempted to coach the kids, or object to a referee’s call, I wanted to again share a portion of it in case it might offer a reminder of what we might want to place the focus: “I do not care how many games you win or lose; I hope you win at least one game so that you and your teammates can experience the satisfaction of winning as a team, but I also hope you lose one so that you will experience the shared disappointment of a team loss...The purpose of the program is to give you and your teammates an opportunity to learn something about competition, sportsmanship and team play by actually playing on a baseball team, in the belief that, if well taught, the lessons learned on the baseball field will be valuable to you as you continue to grow up.”
Have a great week, everyone.
Cheers,
ashen
Hi Everyone,
Last year I mentioned how members of our Main Office staff intentionally and playfully address me as “Dr. Chen” which combines two very common mistakes that are made about my name and/or how to address me in conversation and emails. As I have noted in previous years, you are all more than welcome to continue bestowing the title of “Dr.” upon me, but please know that it’s not one that I’ve earned through any accredited
program. As for what you might call me instead? I am happy to be addressed by my first name (Andrew), and also perfectly comfortable with Mr. Shen for those who prefer to maintain some formality. I would also like to use this moment to provide a gentle note of clarification about my last name -- Shen -- which has throughout my lifetime often been confused for Chen (with a "Ch"), another Chinese-American surname that perhaps is a bit more common and familiar to many in this area. I bring this up annually not only as a point of information about my name, but with the intention of bringing up our school’s commitment to pronouncing all of your names correctly. If and when we cross paths and introduce ourselves at the upcoming Back to School Night, I hope that you’ll provide me with some guidance if I don’t pronounce your name correctly and help me get it right. My hope is that those interactions will be similar to the efforts that our teachers make at the start of the school year to learn the preferences, and the correct pronunciation, of your childrens’ names. As a school we want to promote the idea that pronouncing names correctly can be an important part of helping each person feel welcome and seen, be it here at school or anywhere else. I was recently sent an op-ed in TeenVogue on this very topic by artist N’Jameh Camara who encourages us to shift our language around names less familiar to us from “hard” or “difficult” to “unpracticed”. I particularly liked this portion of her essay:
I know my name isn’t fully practiced in the U.S, so I have no problem teaching it. I, too, have struggled to learn names that are unpracticed to me. But as a person who was taught to respect and say Tchaikovsky, Brecht, Chekhov, Stanislavski and Hammerstein, I know my name can be learned too. What matters most is that we see ourselves as people whose vulnerability and mistake-making hold the potential to bring us closer.
To that end our hope at RJ Grey is to normalize the act of asking for a bit of guidance or confirmation about whether we pronounced a name correctly, and that students might also adopt that same practice. You might hear me practice this at Back to School Night, though please note that even if I succeed in correctly pronouncing the names of parents and guardians I meet that evening, I may not remember all of your names and I ask in advance for a little forgiveness in that regard. As another reminder, Back to School Night is on Thursday, September 26 at 7pm (6:35pm if your child takes the Band, Chorus or String Ensemble electives and you want to meet the teachers). In previous years we sent a schedule for the evening home with your children. This year we are going to email that schedule directly to you. While I am sure every 12 and 13-year old at RJ Grey can be a trusted courier of materials between home and school, we thought that emailing you the schedule for the evening might be a wise route to take.
Here are some important reminders and notes for the next few weeks:
We have yet to receive any submissions from 7th grade parents and guardians who might be interested in serving on the School Council. If you’re planning on throwing your hat in the ring, don’t wait - send me the info now! The role of the School Council is to review and discuss various aspects of the school's activities and goals, and offer advice and guidance about different topics that may emerge during the year. The Council will meet seven times this year, on Monday evenings at 6:30pm (the first will be October 7). If you have any interest, please submit a short (4-6 sentences max) paragraph about yourself by Noon on Monday, September 23rd for the ballot - parents will vote at Back to School Night. Write-ups can be sent to me at [email protected].
I hope all of you had an opportunity to read my email message regarding our plans to hold an ALICE drill this week. You can review the content of that email message by clicking here. Once the drill has been completed I will be sure to send a follow-up message to families.
A few calendar notes for early October: The Junior High and High School will have our first Early Release day on Thursday, October 3, and staff will then participate in professional learning for the remainder of the day. Dismissal for students is at 11:10am at the Junior High and all standard bus routes will be available at that time. Please note that the Late Bus will not be available that day. I would encourage families to discuss and confirm with their child plans for this early release and expectations regarding transportation and post-release activities. On the following week, there will be no school on Wednesday, October 9 because it is Yom Kippur, and then no school on Monday, October 14 for Columbus Day Weekend.
Finally, a quick note about homework. With a few weeks under our belt all of you are likely well aware that homework is assigned as part of your child’s different team classes. A few years ago our staff began an important and wide-ranging conversation about connections between homework and our curriculum, what makes for quality assignments, and the development of common expectations regarding workload. We know that a balance must be struck between the benefits that quality homework assignments can provide and the necessity to manage a workload that is reasonable for students in these grades. This will always be a work in progress and something that we continue to
pursue while keeping a purposeful eye on the many valuable curricular goals and aspirations that are important to preserve. In June 2017 the School Committee also voted and approved a District Homework Policy that applies to all of our schools and offers specific guidance for different grade levels. You can view the Policy by clicking here. As you’ll see within the language, the policy reflects and endorses a view that aligns with much of the Challenge Success work and aspirations that we’ve been exploring. Many of you might recall participating in a District survey last Winter/Spring that invited students, parents, and teachers to provide information about homework practices and experiences at the elementary, middle and high school levels. Those results will be presented and shared later this year as we continue to reflect on our work in this area.
With the above mentioned long weekend coming up, I wanted to highlight for families the portion of the Homework Policy that pertains to homework during long weekends and over school vacation periods. Specifically, that there will be none. Prior to the District’s Homework policy, the Junior High implemented a school policy that homework would not be assigned for any of our extended vacations (Thanksgiving, Winter, February and April Breaks). Three years ago we expanded this expectation to planned long weekends, including the upcoming Columbus Day weekend, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Memorial Day. And now those practices are embedded in the District’s Homework Policy. Nothing will be due (nor any tests or quizzes scheduled) on the day students return from a long weekend or vacation, and long-term projects that are assigned prior to a vacation will not be due earlier than the Thursday after a vacation. For me, what lies at the heart of this policy is a belief that these extended periods away from school can and should provide students and families an opportunity to rest and focus on time with each other, free from any school-related obligations. The commitment we (parents and the school) have to academics will be ever-present, and yet we would be remiss if we ignored what Challenge Success identified as the need for "honoring the importance of downtime, playtime, and family time." We hope students and families will see these periods away from school as an additional opportunity to cultivate other parts of their family's life, be it in the form of leisure and social activities, or simply quality time with each other.
Something else that I would like to make sure that all families are aware of are the team homework calendars. Beginning a few years ago, every team (in both grades) maintains a shared online homework calendar that can be viewed by students and their families. For 7th grade teams, you can go here. For 8th grade teams, you can go here. Our hope is that this additional resource can, first and foremost, support students as they develop the organizational and planning skills that will allow them to adjust to additional responsibilities. Secondarily, this resource may also prove helpful to families who may still need to provide a bit of additional structure and guidance to their children as they work towards that level of independence that we all want them to develop. A friendly reminder, though, that helping them get to that independence may require letting them stumble and fumble a bit on their own and to experience the natural consequences that accompanies some missed assignments or rushed work. I know, easier said than done.
Have a great week, everyone.
Cheers,
ashen
Hi Everyone,
I think it’s a safe bet that many of you, like me, dusted off your chauffeur's cap this past week as you brought your kids, and likely other kids, to a combination of extracurricular activities, sports practices and games, lessons, or rehearsals. If any of you have a 5th grade son whose soccer team played a game at Cutting Field in Sudbury on Saturday, my 14-year old son was one of the line judges for his game. When my own kids compete against a team from AB, the collision of my worlds is already a bit awkward. Now that Hayden might actually be a referee for a game involving teams from AB, I’m semi-dreading the inevitable when one of his calls during a competitive moment results in some kind of passionate reaction from the players, coaches, or spectators. We’ve talked about the messy situations he’ll encounter as a referee and he’s got an idea of how he will deal with it, so I’ll just sit on my hands and remind myself that practicing how to manage conflicts and disagreements is a good life experience. Along with activities and programs that are available to your kids within and beyond Acton and Boxborough, RJ Grey also offers a menu of school-sponsored extracurricular clubs and activities that our students can join. The list of options for 2019-2020 is finalized and you can view those options by clicking here. There is no fee attached to participating in these programs, except for Ski Club, Speech Team, and MathCounts (due to transportation costs and registration fees). Also, students can join most of these clubs throughout the year, so if interest in a club or activity emerges later this year, don’t hesitate to attend a meeting! We’re excited that all of the clubs offered last year will continue to be an option this year, except for Ping Pong. While Ping Pong isn’t available, we also have two new clubs, The Social Action Club with Ms. Mazonson and Ms. Walker, and Race Matters with Ms. Lin, that have been added to meet growing interest expressed by students last year around social activism, and opportunities to wrestle with issues of racism, racial identity, and discussing stories that frequent our news feeds on a daily basis. We look forward to welcoming students to all of these different options, and hope for some it’s an additional opportunity to make connections with teachers and peers.
Along with the above programs, there are two additional Fall activities I want to mention. First, we again have a tennis program available for students on our tennis courts. This is a “fee for service” option through the Marcus Lewis tennis program, though any family for whom the fee presents a financial hardship should not hesitate to contact us to make arrangements. You can learn more about the program by viewing this flyer. We will also have a girls’ volleyball clinic offered this Fall starting October 1 through November 14. This is separate and different from the Girls Volleyball program that is one of our interscholastic athletic teams offered in the Spring [i.e. doing this clinic is not a precondition for making the Volleyball team in the Spring]. This program is open to players of different abilities, including beginners, but does have a limit for the number of participants - so interested students should review the flyer and register with Mrs. Ropiak ([email protected]) who teaches at the High School. When October 1 does arrive, the volleyball clinic will be one of the many programs that takes place in our newly renovated gymnasium. Your children may or may not have mentioned that their Physical Education classes haven’t been able to be held in the gym yet-- that will change by the end of this week when the final painting
and staining of the new floor is completed. The photo to the right is from this past summer, after we removed the existing hardwood flooring that was original to the building. In next week’s Grey Matters I’ll share pictures of the renovation that not only involves a shiny new floor with lines that reflect the different sports that now use that space, but also the brand new bleachers, a gym curtain that can divide the space into two activity spaces, as well as a new scoreboard. As I noted last June, the gym at RJ Grey is one of the most heavily used spaces in our community in terms of youth and adult sports (travel basketball, volleyball, adult badminton, camps, etc.), so it makes a lot of sense for the gym renovation to be on the earlier side of our District’s multi-year capital improvement plan that Peter Light has been introducing to the community over the course of this past year. I also want to note that along with a funding commitment from our District’s capital budget, the renovation of our gym would not be possible without the financial support of our Community Education program and groups like ABSAF.
Another reminder that RJ Grey’s Back to School Night will be on Thursday, September 26th, starting at 7:00pm. For those of you with children who participate in the Band, String Ensemble or Chorus programs, there is an optional meeting at 6:35pm where you can learn more about those programs. Rest assured that schedules for that evening will be coming home. We will also have a copy of your child’s schedule available at the school in case the copy that your child is supposed to give you somehow gets lost in transit. On that evening, we also ask parents to vote for two 7th grade parent/guardian representatives who will serve on this year's School Council. The role of the School Council is to review and discuss various aspects of the school's activities and goals, and offer advice and guidance about different topics that may emerge during the year. The Council will meet seven times this year, on Monday evenings at 6:30pm (the first will be October 7). We are still looking for 7th grade parents who are interested in serving on the Council. If you have any interest, please submit a short (4-6 sentences max) paragraph about yourself by Noon on Monday, September 23rd for the ballot. Write-ups can be sent to me at [email protected].
At Back to School Night, you will see a number of tables hosting a few different school-related organizations, including the PTSO. The PTSO is the parent organization that works with both RJ Grey and the high school to facilitate communication between the schools and the parent community, and supports the schools through various volunteer activities and forums. One way they do this is through a weekly newsletter that you can receive by signing up here. The JH/HS PTSO is structured a bit differently in that they make a single financial request for the entire year -- a $50 membership donation, and there are no additional parent/guardian fundraisers that take place. You can download the membership registration form by clicking here. Along with funding a number of projects, events, and equipment at the Junior High and High School, a membership entitles you to a free student directory (which you pick up that night). Did I also mention no fundraisers? To learn more about the PTSO, you can visit their site by clicking here.
A couple of important scheduling reminders for the next few weeks:
Picture Day is Friday, Sept. 27. Students will be receiving an order form closer to that date, and I’ll send a note when they are expected to go out to families. Students who plan to order photos should bring the order form (and payment) on the 27th. Regardless of whether students order a package of photos, all students will have their photos taken so they can be included in the yearbook. If you have any questions, please contact David Lawrence at [email protected].
At the end of this week RJ Grey families will be receiving an email from me about our upcoming plans for students and staff to participate in a practice drill of our ALICE protocol. Given the nature of the protocol I want to make sure families have an understanding of the scope and goal of the exercise. That letter will likely be sent towards the end of this week. When you receive that letter I would appreciate you taking a few moments to review our plans for that drill.
There is no school on Monday, September 30th as it is Rosh Hashanah. There will be no homework or assessments scheduled to be due/taken on the following day (Tuesday).
As many of you know, Massachusetts passed a comprehensive law in 2010 to address incidents of bullying and harassment in schools. Among other aspects of the law, it calls for every school to implement a research-based curriculum that addressed bullying prevention and prosocial behavior. This year, we are continuing our use of a curriculum created by the Massachusetts Aggression Reduction Center (MARC), an organization based at Bridgewater State that has been heavily involved in the state’s recent efforts to address bullying and harassment in school. This curriculum will be delivered through our RJ Grey Discussion Group meetings, the first of which is scheduled for Tuesday, September 24th. These groups are used to introduce our ongoing goals of having conversations with students about healthy communication, problem solving, and conflict resolution.
Similar to previous years, we will also continue to incorporate speakers and presentations that we feel can complement and expand our work in this area. For 7th grade students, we have again scheduled a great presentation by MARC specifically on cyberbullying and internet safety. The presentation by MARC will take place for 7th grade students on December 13th and will again be led by Meghan McCoy (from MARC) who has worked with our school for several years, and is very familiar with our student audience.
Finally, I want to make sure families in Acton and Boxborough are aware of a service that focuses on mental health services, and through a partnership between the school district and several local organizations, is available to everyone in our two communities. William James Interface is a local initiative in Massachusetts intending to maintain an extensive, frequently updated website listing of available mental health resources by geography and type, and provides a free, confidential mental health and wellness referral line Monday through Friday, 9 am-5 pm, at 888-244-6843. Callers are matched with licensed mental health providers that meet the location, insurance, and specialty needs of the caller. Each referral is provided with follow-up assistance. For more information, you can visit the Interface website here.
Have a great week, everyone.
Cheers,
ashen
Hi Everyone,
I hope all of you had a pleasant four-day Labor Day weekend that perhaps offered some echoes of the Summer that just ended. For me, a brief return to the slower and lazier days in July involved a few things, including some binge-watching of the show The Walking Dead (photo to the right). In recent years I had stopped watching television except for sporting events and news reports, and so I decided to pick a show this summer to watch and accepted the recommendation of a friend that The Walking Dead, with its nine completed seasons and cult following, would give me plenty of good television to watch over the summer. While the storyline of this zombie apocalypse series did not disappoint, I would not recommend watching six or seven episodes in a single day. Doing that a few times over the summer made for some slightly problematic dreams, and achieving healthy and restful sleep a lot harder. For those of you who are followers of the show, I am now nearing the end of season six, and I don’t have a very good feeling about what’s in store for my favorite characters. Despite being a bit more tethered to my television this summer, I also made sure to keep reading, and came across several articles and stories that address topics that have been covered in Grey Matters, and wrestled with questions that we’ve often explored together regarding parenting, schools, and living with teenagers. Some of the articles that I read piqued my interest primarily because of my work at RJ Grey, and other articles spoke both to my work at RJ Grey and to my current status as the parent of three kids between the ages of 11 and 14. Specifically, I was hoping one of those articles might offer me an effective response, or at least a witty retort, to the child in our home who has recently taken to arguing that my parenting efforts violate a number of his constitutional rights as an American citizen (mostly around freedom of speech). While a few of the articles listed below include nuggets that offered me some indirect guidance on that specific issue, the rest of the articles that I am including revisit subjects that I think we’ll continue to think about and discuss together over the course of the year.
As we begin this school year, I am including a link to an article in the Washington Post from a few years ago that offers suggestions for how parents and guardians can stay connected and engaged with their teenage sons. This has been a favorite of mine as it offered me practical suggestions that I’ve found to be effective, including and especially the use of car rides for conversations. Additionally, here’s a more recent article, also from the Washington Post entitled, “How to talk to your middle-schooler (so they might actually listen to you).
Observations and questions around exposure and use of social media by adolescents, and possible concerns around its connection to mental health continues to be a messy and evolving subject. Here’s a recent article from NPR entitled, The Scientific Debate over Teens, Screens, and Mental Health, along with a related 2017 piece from Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Usable Knowledge site on social media and teen anxiety.
Finally, over the past two years there has been significant attention to the dangerous rise in the use of e- cigarettes and vaping (also known as “Juuling”) by teenagers. Many health agencies and school districts, including Acton-Boxborough, have offered workshops and presentations to expand and deepen the knowledge base of parents and guardians about the dangers associated with vaping. For those of you who may still be a bit new to this topic, I’d encourage you to learn more about this subject. You can start with this article in the New York Times, and this article in the Washington Post. Over the next few months, I’ll also re-send other resources and materials that we’ve provided to families that might help you with conversations that you should consider having with your children on this topic.
RJ Grey’s Back to School Night will be on Thursday, September 26th, starting at 7:00pm. For those of you with children who participate in the Band, String Ensemble or Chorus programs, there is an optional meeting at 6:35pm where you can learn more about those programs. Parents should head straight for their child’s homeroom. Schedules for that evening will be coming home before that evening. I am going to travel with all of you to your kids’ classes throughout the evening and hopefully we’ll have a few moments here and there to connect.
On that evening, we also ask parents to vote for two 7th grade parent/guardian representatives who will serve on this year's School Council. The role of the School Council is to review and discuss various aspects of the school's activities and goals, and offer advice and guidance about different topics that may emerge during the year. The Council will meet seven times this year, on Monday evenings at 6:30pm (the first will be October 7). We are looking for 7th grade parents who are interested in serving on the Council. If you have any interest, please submit a short (4-6 sentences max) paragraph about yourself by noon on Monday, September 23rd for the ballot. Write-ups can be sent to me at [email protected].
Here’s a few other scheduling reminders and notes you might want to keep in mind for the next few weeks:
Our annual school picture day is Friday, Sept. 27. When we get closer to that date we will be distributing picture order forms to all students. Regardless of whether families order photos, each child will have his/her photo taken so we can include them in the yearbook. If you would like to order photos but the costs associated with the options would present a financial hardship, I would encourage you to contact David Lawrence at [email protected]. Each year, we have worked with our vendor to find ways for any family who wants a set of photos to receive one.
A friendly reminder that this year our school musical will be James and the Giant Peach and audition workshops will be taking place this week. Audition workshops will be held on Sept. 11 and 12 and attendance at both workshops is mandatory. The auditions themselves are scheduled for Sept. 17 and Sept. 19, and attendance is expected for both days as well. Visit our Theatre Arts page for additional details and information.
In a few weeks, most of our after school clubs and activities will have their first meetings with interested students. The updated list of clubs and activities is not quite ready to share - my hope is to post it on our website by the end of the week. In the meantime, the listing of activities from last year that is still posted on the website offers a sense of what activities are typically offered. Ping Pong will likely not be available this year, but a few new clubs will be introduced soon! This year we will again be offering Fit Club and we do require students to sign up ahead of time (there’s no cost, just need a headcount). To sign up or if you have questions about Fit Club, you can email Katy Frey at [email protected].
Our Fall interscholastic sports programs start this week in terms of tryouts for Girls and Boys’ Soccer, and Field Hockey. Our Cross Country team is a no-cut program, and has an informational meeting on September 11. For all information on our Athletics programs, visit this page. Please remember that all students who plan to participate in tryouts must have completed the “Family ID” registration process. This process is taking the place of the paper “Green Forms” that were required in prior years. Details and instructions are posted on our Athletics website.
Acton-Boxborough will continue to provide a Late Bus option for students at the Junior High and High School. Here is a link to the memo that provides details about this service (including a link to the list of planned stops), which will begin starting this Tuesday, September 3. The Late Bus will pick up students at the Junior High at 4:45pm.
Finally, I hope most of you have had an opportunity to visit our school website - rjgrey.abschools.org. We make every effort to keep the site current, and you can access a number of important school documents and connect to individual teacher websites. Every team also maintains a shared online homework calendar that can also be accessed through our school website (7th grade teams here, 8th grade teams here). In addition, we have a lively active and useful social media presence on both Twitter and Instagram - please consider signing up for one or both! It may also be something that your students may want to consider following as well. These accounts will repeat some information that will always be included in our Daily Announcements, and also gives us a platform to share some fun photos and notes about activities taking place within the school.
Have a great week, everyone.
Cheers,
ashen
Hi Everyone,
Welcome and welcome back to RJ Grey! Two summers ago, my wife Melisa and I went to great pains to plan an elaborate overseas family journey to London and Paris that involved a wide variety of cultural experiences for our three kids -- Hayden (14), Addison (12) and Parker (11) -- theatre performances and afternoon tea in London, and visits to the Louvre and Versailles when in Paris. This summer, all we did was take the three of them to a Shawn Mendes concert and I don’t plan on asking any of them which experience they found more memorable because I may not be able to cope with their answers. Despite the hearing loss that I suffered (not from the music, but from the high pitched and perpetual screaming), our kids enjoyed the experience and while I actually liked a number of the songs, I found myself more curious and captivated by the atmosphere and the elements of youth culture on display all around me. Given my work in a middle school, I have contemplated whether I could write-off the cost of the tickets as a work expense. I’m glad Melisa and I were able to share this kind of experience with the kids (not so sure they fully share that sentiment), despite how old being at this concert made me feel. If only the concert was limited to 6 songs, I could have easily made it home in time for my preferred bedtime. For this 42-year old, the additional 17 songs was just him overdoing it and showing off his youthful vigor. I hope this year’s first edition of Grey Matters finds each of you returning from a summer that provided you with plenty of your own stories and included a combination of rest, adventure, and good company that made for a satisfying time away from school.
As we all prepare to enter this first week of school I know you share our excitement and hopes for a strong start to the school year. For those new to RJ Grey, please be assured that we dedicate these first few days to helping every student get acclimated to one’s surroundings, and we know that there’s a lot to take in during these first few days. We will have opening assemblies for both grades, and the 7th grade assembly includes a short welcome video that we hope offers students a snapshot of what will be part of their school year. I will end that assembly emphasizing that our goal for our opening activities is for each of them to leave knowing how excited we are to have them at RJ Grey this year.
For those of you who might be visiting RJ Grey during the day, please remember that visitors can only enter through the front door, where they will request entry by ringing a buzzer. Once the front door has been unlocked for you to enter, you will need to check in at the Main Office window where you’ll be greeted by Ms. Katy Frey, who is our front office receptionist (also known in our office, and various corners of Acton and Boxborough, as the Executive Director of Office Affairs).
For those who plan to drop off your children in the morning, I look forward to seeing you bright and early in the lower parking lot. While some of the morning traffic can be a bit of a nuisance, I have shared this site with families at the start of the last few school years as a way to offer some perspective on some of the traffic woes that we might experience over the course of the upcoming year. For those families who are veterans of the drop-off circus process, thank you for your patience as we help new families adjust to our morning traffic routines.
By now I hope most of you have had an opportunity to visit our school website - rjgrey.abschools.org. We make every effort to keep the site current, and you can access a number of important school documents and connect to individual teacher websites. Every team also maintains a shared online homework calendar that can also be accessed through our school website. In addition, we have both an RJ Grey Twitter account and Instagram account - please consider signing up for one or both! These accounts will repeat some information that will always be included in our Daily Announcements, and also gives us a platform to share some fun photos and notes about activities taking place within the school.
There’s a few upcoming events and activities that I want to make sure families have on their respective radars:
Our Fall interscholastic sports programs start this Tuesday, September 3 in terms of tryouts for Girls and Boys’ Soccer, and September 5 for Field Hockey. Our Cross Country team is a no-cut program, and has an informational meeting on September 11. For all information on our Athletics programs, visit this page. Please remember that all students who plan to participate in tryouts must have completed the “Family ID” registration process. This process is taking the place of the paper “Green Forms” that were required in prior years. Details and instructions are posted on our Athletics website.
This year, our school musical will be James and the Giant Peach and auditions will be taking place later this month. Audition workshops will be held on Sept. 11 and Sept. 12, and attendance at both workshops is mandatory. The auditions themselves are scheduled for Sept. 17 and Sept. 18, and attendance is expected for both days as well. Visit our Theatre Arts page for additional details and information.
Our annual School Picture Day is scheduled for Friday, September 27th. When we get closer to that date, we will send an order form home with students. No need to prepare for it now, just wanted you all to know the date.
Within the next week or two, our website will include a list of clubs and afterschool activities that are open for all students to join. The list currently posted on our website includes last year’s offerings. We’re hoping to offer many of the same clubs and activities as previous years, along with some new offerings that emerge over the course of the year.
The week after Labor Day long weekend will include a few safety-related activities and conversations with the students, and so I want to make mention and provide important reminders about both the technical and relationship-focused strategies that are associated with our efforts to maintain a safe learning environment. As previously mentioned above, our schools have locked entrances during the school day and a protocol for entering the school. Additionally, there are cameras positioned (only) in the main entrance and hallway areas within the school. These decisions did not come lightly and certainly speak to the increasing complexities and responsibilities that school districts must address regarding student safety and addressing behaviors that might violate community values. What I want to emphasize to families is that those practices don’t replace our more important efforts and dedication to developing relationships with students that focus on a culture of mutual respect. In the classroom, on teams, and as a whole school, we know how essential it is to emphasize messaging about our individual and shared responsibilities for establishing a positive school climate for everyone. Helping students this age develop skills and strategies to manage peer conflicts, difficult conversations, and decision making during challenging moments are not only “school safety strategies”, but are in and of themselves a part of the learning experience that is central to a successful middle school education.
Along with the first of four fire drills that we hold annually, we’ll also be hosting two all-grade assemblies to re-introduce students to the recently adopted ALICE protocol. Given that ALICE training is specifically focused on responding to a situation involving an armed intruder, we do plan to approach our conversation with students as thoughtfully as possible. Students at this age present an interesting dilemma - they are usually savvy enough to quickly see through any use of ambiguous language to describe why we are introducing ALICE. At the same time, we have to be mindful of the fact that 12 to 14-year olds still need help processing what is an inherently messy and upsetting topic. We want students to have an appropriate level of awareness and preparation, and we also want to avoid having the experience be anxiety-inducing. So it’s a delicate balance we work hard to establish and of which we are mindful during our presentations.
Finally, Back to School Night will be on Wednesday, September 26 - save the date! On that evening, we ask parents to vote for two 7th grade parent/guardian representatives who will serve on this year's School Council. The School Council is comprised of 4 parents, two RJ Grey staff members, and yours truly. The role of the School Council is to review and discuss various aspects of the school's activities and goals, and offer advice and guidance about different topics that may emerge during the year. The Council will meet seven times this year, on Monday evenings (October 7 being the first one). We are again looking for two 7th grade parents to serve a two-year term. If you are a 7th grade parent interested in serving on the Council, please submit a short (4-6 sentences) paragraph about yourself by noon on Friday, September 20th. Write-ups can be sent to me at [email protected].
Have a great week, everyone. Welcome back.
Cheers,
ashen
Hi Everyone,
Happy Father’s Day to those of you who celebrated the event this past weekend. In a 2016 edition of Grey Matters I shared with families my lifelong dream of having an outdoor pergola structure in my backyard, and how I tend to drop subtle and not-so-subtle hints about that dream a month or two before Father’s Day each year. I did it again this year, and was so thrilled to wake up on Sunday morning to some lovely new clothes that my family picked out for me as gifts to celebrate the day. While my dreams for a pergola in my backyard will have to wait, probably forever, there are some exciting changes to the physical space at RJ Grey that is taking place over the summer that I want to make sure everyone knows about. Last Wednesday we closed the gym so we could begin a substantial renovation to that space and have it ready for use before the start of school next Fall. In the gym we will be removing the current hardwood flooring that was original to the building, and installing a new hardwood floor that will hopefully be without the many dead spots where bouncing basketballs go sideways for no apparent reason. There’s only so many times when patching and repairing bumps and creases in the flooring makes sense. The new flooring will also include lines that reflect the different sports that now use that space through our school and community education programs. In addition to the flooring, we will also be installing new bleachers, a gym curtain that can divide the space into two activity spaces, as well as a new scoreboard. As many families know, the gym at RJ Grey is also one of the most heavily used spaces in our community in terms of youth and adult sports (travel basketball, volleyball, adult badminton, camps, etc.), so it makes a lot of sense for the gym renovation to be on the earlier side of our District’s multi-year capital improvement plan that Peter Light has been introducing to the community over the course of this past year. While the proposal for the new twin school for Douglas and Gates deserves the most attention right now in terms of scope, cost, and impact, I wanted to make sure that everyone knows that the other buildings, including the Junior High, are not being ignored. Along with a funding commitment from our District’s capital budget, the renovation of our gym would not be possible without the financial support of our Community Education program and groups like ABSAF. Beyond the gym, some of the other upgrades to the Junior High won’t be as obvious and flashy, such as mechanical upgrades and thermal wrapping, but nonetheless important for the building to function properly. Once this first wave of projects is completed I look forward to beginning my grassroots campaign to fund a heated canopy that would be built over the space where I direct traffic in the morning.
We had over 350 8th grade students join us last Friday night for our annual end-of-year celebration and dance, and we hope those in attendance enjoyed the opportunity to spend some time with friends and classmates before we part ways for the Summer. We were fortunate to once again have an army of volunteer parents take the lead on this event. An event of this size is only possible because those parents and families are willing to contribute their time and energy. A big “Thank You” to everyone who helped make the evening a big success - the donations of food from many of our families resulted in a bounty of food that was consumed throughout the evening. Many thanks also goes to Debbie Ahl (8 Green English teacher) and our 7th grade School Council officers for their work. And an extra and ongoing thank you to parent coordinators Carol Chytil, Deb Verner, and Ranjini Reddy for once again choreographing the whole evening, soup to nuts.
Here’s a final list of reminders and notes about this week, please make sure you follow up with your children about anything that might pertain to you:
Class field trips are on Wednesday- rain or shine! The forecast right now for Tuesday doesn’t look great, and it’s suggesting that there may be a bit of rain during the day. 7th graders will be heading to Kimball’s and 8th graders are heading to Canobie Lake - all students will be back in time for the regular 2:36pm dismissal and bus pick up. Parents are also welcome to come and pick up their children.
The Library will not be open after school this week. As a side note, we only have a few more library books to collect, which is great. Thank you to the students and families for remembering to return borrowed items.
Students who ordered yearbooks will be receiving them on Wednesday (the last day) before the Closing Assembly. There are a limited number of additional yearbooks that are currently on sale for $37. Those who are interested in purchasing a yearbook should connect with Mr. Lewis. Many thanks to Mr. Lewis and the Yearbook Club crew for their hard work and efforts this year.
The last day of school is Wednesday and it is a half-day. Our closing activity is an all-school assembly (students and staff only) that will take place in the High School auditorium. Students will be dismissed at the end of the event, and can get on buses right outside the high school (at 11:06am). Parents planning to pick their children up can still park in the Junior High parking lot.
Report cards will be e-mailed to families by early July. If you haven’t seen anything in the mail by mid-July, send me an email and we can get you another copy.
Families of current 7th grade students who are returning to RJ Grey next year (or if you are a family with a student joining us next year from the elementary schools), you’ll receive our summer communication in early August via email. If you are a current 7th grade family who is not planning to return to RJ Grey next year (moving, attending a private school, etc.), we would appreciate hearing from you, as that information will assist us with our scheduling work this summer.
Next year, school starts for students for 7th and 9th graders on Wednesday, August 28. 8th grade students start the next day, Thursday, August 29. Here is a link to the District page where you can access next year’s school calendar.
Because this is the final edition of Grey Matters for the year my intention is to continue the tradition of ending with some words and thoughts that I put together a few years ago and have included at the conclusion of each year. While I always feel a bit of regret that my closing remarks aren’t entirely original and unique to each year, I am also grateful that the experiences and sentiments that I have expressed each June continue to be applicable with another school year coming to a close.
Before we briefly part ways for the summer, I want to thank you, our parent and family community, for your continued support of our school. It does not escape me (or us) the degree to which family involvement and investment changes the landscape of a school, more often than not for the better. We know that parents have high expectations for the school, and that we also have high expectations for the parents. This partnership is indeed what often leads to the positive experiences that so many of our students have at RJ Grey. To be sure, those high expectations also means that there will continue to be moments where we aren’t in total agreement on some things. However, I’ll always take passionate debate and occasional disagreements over apathy and disinterest, especially when it comes from a shared interest in how to help our students (your kids) develop into thoughtful and confident individuals.
As I mention each June, the summer months away from school serve an important purpose for students, families, and teachers. It’s an opportunity to decompress, pursue other interests, and re-charge. Thinking about school 24/7 doesn’t benefit anyone, and we hope that everyone uses these next several weeks to expand their horizons, take some healthy risks and try a few new things, and treasure those moments where time feels like it moves more slowly while you’re doing absolutely nothing at all. It is always remarkable to see the degree to which young people change and grow, even in these too short summer months, and we look forward to reuniting with our returning students, and welcoming our next 7th grade class to RJ Grey. Like last summer, we too will decompress a bit, and spend time dreaming up ways to make next year a good one for our students.
Have a great week, and a great summer, everyone.
Cheers,
ashen
Hi Everyone,
Summer is around the corner and it’s nearly impossible to escape conversations about the summer, whether here at school, at home, or simply in the news. I’m also excited for the summer and the chance to decompress and take advantage of a summer work schedule that is a bit less frenetic and offers the chance to prepare for the next school year. Part of those preparations for next year will be heavily focused on our plans to introduce a 1:1 Chromebook classroom environment, something I introduced in Grey Matters in February. For those of you with students who will be with us next year as returning 8th graders, or new 7th graders, rest assured that you’ll be receiving plenty of information later this Summer and at the start of the year that provides an overview of our plans and protocols with those devices. As we begin to think about our work with Chromebooks, we know that how we ask students to organize their learning materials will evolve over time. Our teachers will begin to look at different ways of distributing work, collecting work, and students will begin to learn more strategies for organizing information digitally. Our prediction is that over the next few years, our approach to school supplies will change as we shift the approach that students take to staying organized, and accessing materials and work. In previous years, we have traditionally had a uniform school supply list for the whole school that was organized by grade and by subject. As we begin our transition to a 1:1 Chromebook environment, we will be asking individual teams to try out different approaches to how they have their students travel through the school in terms of materials (binders, notebooks, folders, etc.). To account for this transition, and allow for some variation by team, we are taking a different approach to school supply lists for next year. Instead of a uniform supply list for the school, each team will be providing its students with a team-specific list. Please know that while next year the team-specific lists may have some distinct differences between and amongst them, none of the lists will include more than what has recently been expected in our previous supply lists for families. Over time, it will be our goal to return to a more uniform list for the school that will be informed by our different approaches over the next two years, and eventually include a reduction in what we ask families to purchase.
As for how families will receive information about their child’s team-specific supply list, here’s a brief preview of our plans. In our annual summer mailing to families in early August, we will provide an overview and explanation about school supplies similar to what I shared above. Then, team placements are released via the Parent Portal on Thursday, August 15 (and all of the hoopla and frenzied texting and calling takes place). Within a few days of the team release, we will then email families a Welcome Letter from their child’s team teachers. This letter will provide a brief welcome from the team that includes goals and other useful information for the school year, as well as the team’s requested supply list. With the first day of school for 7th grade students scheduled for Thursday, August 28th, this timeline should provide families ample time to address school supply needs before everyone returns. We continue to be sensitive about moments when we need to ask families to spend money on school-related activities and needs, and we appreciate that school supplies are one area where costs can add up - especially for families with multiple students! We will also continue to provide messaging and reminders to families about our commitment to assisting any of our students and families with school-related requests and costs that may prove difficult to address.
The 8th Grade End-of-Year Celebration is this Friday at 7pm! Please also note the event ends promptly at 9pm. You’re by-that-time-overtired-Principal thanks you in advance for coming on time to get your kids. Another thank you to the parents and guardians who have already volunteered and signed up for one or more of the roles that are listed on the Sign Up form for this event. We could still use a few more volunteers to make sure that everything runs smoothly, especially the crew for helping with take down and clean up after the event. If you’re able to participate please sign up by following this link to a Sign Up Genius: 8th Grade Celebration Help. For those of you bringing kids to the school that evening, this event is held in our (transformed) cafeteria and students enter through the side door (you’ll see it); so parents who are dropping kids off can pull right up to the front of the school. When picking kids up after the event, we would suggest parking in the lower parking lot and either waiting in the car, or coming up to the entrance to meet your kids. Your options probably depend on the degree to which your child allows you to be seen in public with them. I know for some of you it may be tempting to sneak into the dance to catch a peak of your child at this event - I’d actually encourage you to resist that temptation and let your child enjoy the full evening on their own.
Here’s some reminders for this last full week of school:
Our yearbooks have arrived! The company that publishes them included an extra 30 with the order for us to have available to those who did not order one. They will be sold on a first come, first served basis. If you would like one, please send in a check for $37 made payable to RJ Grey JHS. Make sure to include with it the name of your child and their team. Checks can be left in our main office or delivered to Mr. Lewis in Room 313.
If your child is not planning to attend RJ Grey or the High School next year, please be sure to let us know. We have to officially confirm your family’s plans to withdraw your child from the school system, and can also assist you in transferring records and other information to your child’s next school. Please email our registrar Lena Jarostchuk ([email protected]) with that information.
Does your child have an RJ Grey Library book or old textbook buried under some laundry? Teachers will begin the process of collecting textbooks and other learning materials, so anything you can do to help unearth these items would be greatly appreciated (and save you some money). Also, for families who might have a negative balance in their child’s lunch account, please be sure to reconcile that matter as well. If you have questions about your lunch account, feel free to email Kirsten Nelson at [email protected]
The end-of-year field trips are on June 18th - a week from Tuesday. Both 7th grade and 8th grade students will be back from their respective trips in time to be dismissed at the regular 2:06pm time and can take the bus home. If your child is not planning on attending either trip (or simply won’t be at school by that point), please be sure to email Katy Frey ([email protected]).
The last day of school is Wednesday, June 19th and it is a half-day. Our closing activity is an all-school assembly (students and staff only) that will take place in the High School auditorium. Students will be dismissed at the end of the event, and can get on buses right outside the high school (at 11:06). Parents planning to pick their children up can still park in the Junior High parking lot.
At the end of every school year, we send off our 8th grade students and wish them well as most of them make their way down the street to the high school, while others join private schools, enroll in a vocational program, or are moving out of Acton or Boxborough. This year, we are also preparing to bid farewell to two retiring members of the RJ Grey staff, as they begin new chapters of their lives as well. Joyce Kelly (35 years, Math teacher) and Bernice Higdon (20 years, Special Education assistant) are completing distinguished careers as educators. Celebrating the retirements of our colleagues is always bittersweet; we are happy they’re in a position to pursue other interests, and we’ll also miss them deeply. If you and/or your children have some fond memories of working with any of these teachers and staff members, I would encourage you to drop them a quick note and join us in thanking them for their years of service to RJ Grey and all of its students.
Have a great week, everyone. We’re almost there!
Cheers,
ashen
Hi Everyone,
The photo to the right is of the view that I had for much of last Saturday. Was I hiking? No. Was I clearing brush in my backyard? No. I was, in fact, golfing. Let’s just say that the instructional videos I watched ahead of time on Youtube about how to fix my wicked slice were less than helpful and I struck no fewer than 50 trees during my five-hour exercise in humility. Most of the day was spent on the golf course with Dave and Adam, two of my closest friends who I’ve known since our time in elementary school. Getting together with friends you’ve known since early childhood is always fun, and it’s also unavoidable that the passage of time feels a bit more dramatic, and you feel a lot older - especially when you’re playing golf and have a lot of time in between to compare notes about life, share updates and offer the obligatory and inevitable comment about some part of the body that’s aching a bit more often these days. At least during this last round of golf we avoided the main topic of last year’s round of golf, which was an hour plus dialogue about life insurance options and estate planning. Even though both Dave and Adam’s kids are a bit younger than my own, our between-holes-dialogue this time around focused on parenting dilemmas and questions related to, perhaps unsurprisingly, their kids’ first peer conflicts, indecision about extracurricular activities, and how to be thoughtful about technology -- topics that I know all of us parents continue to wrestle with here at RJ Grey. On these subjects, there were a few recent articles that I thought might be worth sharing, the first a piece in the New York Times entitled, “Is Digital Addiction A Real Threat to Kids” which I think offers a potentially useful way of viewing adolescent use of technology and social media. There was also an article in The Atlantic highlighting a new book by David Epstein called Range, which offers an argument that individuals who achieve success in elite professional fields often succeed because they started out as a “generalist” and did not specialize in a field or skill too early in life. While this article and focus of Epstein’s book was never explicitly mentioned in the conversation I had with Dave and Adam, the role of parents as “gatekeepers” and the ones influencing our kids’ early pursuits was at the heart of the questions and ideas that were offered and, as Epstein notes, is quite central to why he began exploring this question in the first place. Epstein offers some conclusions and advice that to many may feel counterintuitive and certainly contrary to recent trends and habits that are not uncommon in communities like ours. If you’ve got a few minutes, this might be a piece you might want to chew on for a bit. And finally, while talking to friends I’ve had since childhood about the current childhood experiences of our eight kids made the three of us feel markedly older, none of our kids are nearing the significant milestone of graduating from high school which I would imagine will result in a whole different bucket of emotions and thoughts about how quickly kids grow up, and where the time has gone. I mention this not with the goal of making those of you with graduating seniors feel even older, but instead as a clumsy transition to offering a sincere note of congratulations to the families who do have kids who are graduating this Spring, many of whom will be participating in Acton-Boxborough’s commencement exercises this Friday. It’s not too early to be thinking positive thoughts for good weather. Enjoy the moment!
Two-and-a-half weeks of school! Here’s a few reminders for you and your kids:
Does your child have an RJ Grey Library book or old textbook buried under some
laundry? Teachers will begin the process of collecting textbooks and other learning
materials, so anything you can do to help unearth these items would be greatly
appreciated (and save you some money). Also, for families who might have a negative
balance in their child’s lunch account, please be sure to reconcile that matter as well. If
you have questions about your lunch account, feel free to email Kirsten Nelson at
[email protected]
The end-of-year field trips are on June 18th. Both 7th graders and 8th graders will
return from their respective trips before 2:36pm so they can take the bus home or be
picked up by families. If your student is not planning on attending school for some or all
of that final week, please call or email Katy Frey ([email protected]).
If your child is not planning to be at school during the last day(s) of the school year, we
would appreciate it if you let us know so we can plan accordingly and account for
students during those days. You can send an email to Katy Frey ([email protected])
and it would also be helpful if you let your child’s team teachers know as well.
We recently received a note from the Superintendent’s Office reminding us about the services that are still available to families during the summer vacation. Specifically, breakfast, lunch, snacks and drinks will be sold daily from 9:00am to 11:30am in the High School cafeteria from June 24 through August 2. For students who are currently eligible for free and reduced lunches, their eligibility continues through the summer. For more information, contact Food Services Director Kirsten Nelson at 978-264-4700 x3221, or [email protected].
Many thanks to the Student Council and parent volunteers who put together last Friday’s 7th grade dance. Many families donated food, and we also had a number of parents who volunteered to keep the food and drink available to the students throughout the evening. Many thanks to: Mai Nguyen, Tracey Estabrook, Joe Loyall, Tom Berube, Pam Holden-Webber, and Nicole Magun.
Don’t forget about the Empty Bowls event this Thursday from 5:30pm to 7:00pm! This is an evening of art, singing and ice cream! Students will showcase their art and singing talents and invite families to a charity ice cream social. There will be an art show, Select Choir performance, a silent auction, and of course the charity ice cream social. The money raised from this event will be donated to the Acton Community Supper and Acton Food Pantry. The ice cream social is $5 per person with a $20 family maximum. The rest of the event is free and we hope many of you are able to carve out some time to join us.
Here’s another reminder about the End-of-Year 8th Grade Dance/Celebration scheduled for the evening of Friday, June 14. Parents or guardians of 7th and 8th graders are needed for the following jobs: set up after school on June 14th; clean up after the dance; food and drink donations. In past years, 7th grade Parent/Guardian Volunteers "pay it forward" so that parents of 8th graders can focus on their own children's participation in this important event. Please sign up if you can help us with setup/cleanup activities or with food donations by following this link to a Sign Up Genius: 8th Grade Celebration Help. If you have questions, contact the event coordinators at [email protected]..
Congratulations to 7th grader Sansriti Kumar of 8 Blue who was named Artist of the Month for this June. Sansriti and her artwork were chosen for the month of June and she is posing with one of her pieces in the photo to the left. When asked about some things that influence her artwork, she shared:, “I honestly don’t like the outdoors but I do appreciate the beauty in it. I like to take scenery and paint it from my perspective. An artist’s perspective. The color schemes usually express my emotions and feelings toward the object or landscape.” You can view more of Sansriti’s work by clicking here.
Finally, we ended last week with a special edition of Poetry Friday, where RJ Grey student Sivapriya Marimuthu read an original piece that she wrote about memories of the school year entitled, “Just Another Puzzle.” You can also read Sivapriya’s poem by clicking here.
Have a great week, everyone.
Cheers,
ashen
Hi Everyone,
Because running for President is now so incredibly expensive, candidates are turning to super fundraisers known as “bundlers” who are individuals who commit to collecting a certain amount of campaign contributions from other donors. I’ve decided this month to serve as a bundler, but instead of for a political campaign, I’m going to take on this role in service of two important year-end activities at Acton-Boxborough, the 8th grade End-of-Year celebration, and the High School’s annual Project Graduation event. And instead of trying to raise money, I am going to try and convince as many of you as possible to volunteer for one or both of those events. These are two events that serve an important role at the Junior High and High School, respectively, as we continue to celebrate certain milestones and transitions for our students. These two events also rely heavily, if not almost entirely, on the willingness of community members to contribute their time to planning, organizing, and supervising these events. We are fortunate that there already exists a core group of parents who serve as the event coordinators for both -- but as we near the actual date of both events, there is still an unfilled need for volunteers to help set up, decorate, chaperone, manage, or breakdown different activities or aspects of the event. To be sure, many of you already give a good deal of your time, expertise, and also money - to many important programs in the community. I’m hoping and asking you to also consider giving a bit more of your time to one or both of these important events as a way to continue the pay-it-forward model that has served our community so well for many years. For 7th grade families, chipping in for the 8th grade dance has a pretty quick “return on investment” with your own kids attending this event next year. And while our current Junior High students won’t be graduating from High School for another four to five years, the sheer size and scale of Project Graduation (think all-night festivities for 400+ kids) really relies on an all-hands-on-deck commitment from our families. It might be ambitious of me, but I am setting for myself a “bundling goal” of 20-25 volunteers for Project Graduation, and asking our RJ Grey families to please consider a role that you can comfortably serve for that event which offers graduating students an all-night substance free celebration with prizes, activities, and food. Consider helping out because you remember an event like this when you yourself graduated from high school (for me it was Andover High School’s Senior Safari on June 5, 1995), or because my above plea about paying-it-forward resonated with you. Learn more about Project Graduation by visiting their website here. As for the 8th grade celebration on June 14 from 7-9pm, the organizers need your help with set up after school on June 14th, clean up after the dance, and with food and drink donations. Please sign up if you can help us by following this Sign Up Genius link (8th Grade Celebration Help). If you have any questions, contact the 8th grade celebration team at [email protected]. Thank you for considering!
Here’s some reminders and updates for students and families:
Our Yearbook advisor Mr. Lewis has ordered several extra copies of this year’s Yearbook
that will be available to purchase by students and families who may have forgotten to
order one during the original window. Stay tuned for details of how to purchase.
Thanks to those families who have submitted their field trip permission form and
payment for the end-of-year field trips to Kimball’s (7th grade) and Canobie Lake (8th
grade). If you still need to send it in, please make an effort to do so this week. Within
the next week we will begin reaching out to families for whom we do not have a record
of their plans for that day.
If your child is not planning to be at school during the last day(s) of the school year, we
would appreciate it if you let us know so we can plan accordingly and account for
students during those days. You can send an email to Katy Frey ([email protected])
and it would also be helpful if you let your child’s team teachers know as well.
Don’t forget about the Empty Bowls event on Thursday, June 6 from 5:30pm to 7:00pm! This is an evening of art, singing and ice cream! Students will showcase their art and singing talents and invite families to a charity ice cream social. There will be an art show, Select Choir performance, a silent auction, and of course the charity ice cream social. The money raised from this event will be donated to the Acton Community Supper and Acton Food Pantry. The ice cream social is $5 per person with a $20 family maximum. The rest of the event is free and we hope many of you are able to carve out some time to join us.
The High School has released its updated Summer Reading List (click here to view) that it encourages all of its students, including rising 9th grade students (those are your kids, 8th grade parents!), to look at if they’re stuck for suggestions. Please note that the Junior High nor the High School do not have any required summer reading, but we all want to encourage students to find something to enjoy and read.
Finally, the Student Council elections were held last week to determine next year’s President, Vice President, Treasurer and Secretary. We first want to thank and applaud every 7th grader who ran in the elections. It’s not easy at any age to put yourself out there, let alone plan and deliver a speech to a few hundred classmates. The 7th grade class listened to a range of thoughtful and funny speeches by each of our candidates. Congratulations to next year’s Student Council officers: Secretary, Advikar Ananthkumar; Treasurer, Josie Hanlon; Vice President, William Wu; Co-President(s), Ryan Leo and Miller Lillie.
I hope everyone had a nice long weekend. Finally some good weather!
Have a great week, everyone.
Cheers,
ashen
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