
Parent Newsletter
Jan. 20th - 24th
No School on Monday Jan. 20th in observance of MLK Holiday
Week 3
- A look at the Week Ahead
- Remembering a courageous leader - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
- JMS Teacher of the Year and Teaching Assistant of the Year
- Leadership in Action Award Winners
- STEM Night is 2/20/20
- Rep. Ragan visits JMS
- Spelling Bee
- PTO News
- Counselors Corner
Thanks for all that you do to support JMS each and every day,
Phil Cox, Principal
Chris Layton, Vice Principal
Jenifer Laurendine, Dean of Students
A Look at the Week Ahead
Monday-20
NO SCHOOL— MLK, Jr. Day
Tuesday-21
A day
5th/6th Grade Homework Help (Martin) Rm 319 7:00-7:30 and 2:45-3:30
8th Grade Homework Help (Haun) Rm 204 7:05-7:35
Atomic Eagles Lego League Team Meeting (Shanafield) Science Wing 2:45-4:45
Master Builders Lego League Team Meeting (Scott) Rm 102 2:45-4:30
Girls Basketball Practice 3:00-5:00
Boys Basketball Practice 5:00-7:00
Wednesday-22
B day
8th Grade Homework Help (Haun) Rm204 7:05-7:35
Geography Bee-Library 1st-5th periods
Ski and Snowboard Club to Ober 12:55-8:45 (if weather and slope conditions are favorable)
CPR/AED certification for limited 8th graders (see Ms. Painter or Mr. Goldberg for list)
Boys Basketball Practice 1:00-3:00
Thursday-23
A day
5th/6th Grade Homework Help (Martin) Rm 319 7:00-7:30 and 2:45-3:30
8th Grade Homework Help (Haun) Rm204 7:05-7:35
Math Club (Tracey) Rm 203 2:45-4:00
Robotic Sumo Bot Team Meeting (Franco) Rm 316 2:45-4:30
7th/8th Grade Tutoring (Hondorf) Rm 301 2:45-3:30
Library Club 2:45-3:45
Girls Basketball Practice 3:00-5:00
Boys Basketball Practice 5:00-7:00
Friday-24
B day
8th Grade Homework Help (Haun) Rm204 7:05-7:35
Youth for Christ-JPAC 7:30
Girls Basketball Practice 3:00-5:00
Boys Basketball Practice 5:00-7:00
Saturday-25
Basketball District Tournament @ Robertsville Middle School
Boys 11:15 Opponent TBD
Girls 12:30 Opponent TBD
Honoring the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Monday, January 21st, is Dr. Martin Luther King Holiday. Spend some time this week learning about the amazing life of this American icon and treasure. You can find a lot of great information about the life and works of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. here at the History.com link.
Teacher of the Year: Ms. Katie Bolling
Ms. Bolling has contributed to the JMS community in many roles and capacities over her career. As she has worked at JMS she has worked to be an advocate for students and worked to help many students grow and maximize their potential. Coach Bolling has a major impact on a huge population of students each and every day. She works in collaborative manner to help support her colleagues, students and families. Coach Bolling is constantly working to find new ways to support students and make her classroom engaging.
Coach Bolling works each and every day to support student needs for physical health, social health and mental health. She is dedicated to the students of JMS both through her role in the classroom and also her efforts with multiple extracurricular activities and groups. Coach Bolling is the first to volunteer and help with many programs and efforts across our school. We are proud to announce Ms. Katie Bolling as our 2019 – 2020 Teacher of the Year at JMS.
Teaching Assistant of the Year - Matt Reed
Leadership in Action Awards: January
Mr. Tracey works hard to support the needs of his students each and every day at Jefferson Middle School. Through a relentless pursuit of learning and finding ways to connect his subject to students Mr. Tracey exhibits a growth mindset and a dedication to student success. He spends a lot of time diving into student data, analyzing the needs for his students, and working to develop resources to help student learning. His passion for helping students pursue knowledge is fundamental to the success that is exhibited by his students on a consistent basis. As a level 5 teacher, Mr. Tracey is constantly working to hone his craft and find ways to improve. He works to improve his approach with his content, as well as finding new innovative ways to improve student outcomes and make real world connections. Mr. Tracey takes the challenge of helping students utilizing data and key fundamental ideas to drive curiosity and engagement to his subject. Mr. Tracey makes efforts to support JMS through participation in club sponsorship and also helping with many JMS activities over the years. The efforts made by Mr. Tracey have made a major impact on his students as is evidenced through their successes. We are proud to present this Leadership In Action Award to Mr. David Tracey.
Jim Dodson: Art
Mr. Dodson has touched the lives of many throughout both the JMS community and the Oak Ridge community. He has worked to support the needs of countless students and find ways to infuse his own passion for his class into the hearts and minds of his students. The ability to design, create, think critically, creatively and commission innovative ways to approach his class is something he works on continuously. Mr. Dodson has the unique ability of being able to combine both the art and science of teaching into a wonder of curiosity and engagement. In addition to his passion for his class he is also active in many regards with supporting the JMS community. Mr. Dodson is active in his department throughout the district and greater East TN. Mr. Dodson's contributions within his field have been beneficial to countless numbers of young aspiring students and teachers.
Mr. Dodson's efforts to help Oak Ridge schools over the years has been integral to the success of JMS. Thanks to his efforts we are able to feel safer and secure with the addition of Officer Owen. These contributions are only to name a few to the efforts made by this amazing teacher. We are proud to present this leadership in action award to Mr. Jim Dodson.
Spelling Bee 2019-2020
We are very proud of all of our JMS Spelling Bee participants today! The bee lasted through 17 grueling rounds before a winner emerged!
A big shout out to the JMS Spelling Bee Runner-Up, 7th grader Cayce Byrd, and the JMS Spelling Bee Winner, 8th grader Imelia Markus-Brock!
Imelia will go on to represent JMS at the 2020 Southern Appalachia Regional Spelling Bee in March. We wish you the best, Imelia, as you begin to prepare for the regional bee. We are very proud of you!
Representative Ragan visits JMS
The day started in our Eagles Nest conference room, where Rep. Ragan was greeted by a representative from Ms. Kala's class' coffee shop, "Jefferson Jumpin Beans". This was a great opportunity for Rep. Ragan to learn more about this business and start the morning with a great cup of coffee. Every Friday, Ms. Kala's class makes coffee and distributes out to the JMS staff. In addition, Rep. Ragan shared a class set of the Tennessee Blue Book that he was donating to our school. The Tennessee Blue Book is filled with facts and information about the state of Tennessee. Ironically, the blue book for this year is actually bound in yellow this year. Rep. Ragan explained the book was bound in yellow to symbolize Tennessee's anniversary for 100 years since Tennessee helped ratify the women's suffrage amendment (19th amendment). He explained during the time in 1919 when this was being explored that members of the state legislature in favor of women's suffrage wore a yellow rose on their suit, those opposed wore a red rose.
After a nice coffee warm up, Rep. Ragan spent 3rd period, sharing, collaborating and discussing with several JMS teachers including the 8th grade team. Rep. Ragan shared information to show correlations for student data across the state of Tennessee. JMS teachers and admin provided information about how we are utilizing benchmark data to help prepare students to attaining needed skills.
After the first meeting, Rep. Ragan went on a tour of JMS by stopping in Mr. Brewer's 8th grade US History class. He spent time discussing his role as a representative and also the process for how a bill becomes a law. Students were able to ask some questions and Rep. Ragan worked to help provide answers. The tour was joined by Dr. Borchers as well to hear from our students in Mr. Brewer's room. From there Rep. Ragan went into the JMS gym to learn more about our Aeronautics program. Some of our amazing students were able to show him the drones that they have designed and printed on our 3D printers. It was a great experience to hear our students explain the design process and the engineering process. From there they took their drone on a test flight to show Rep. Ragan how they work. The tour left the gym area and went to Mr. Jaeger's classroom to see where students were continuing with their design of their drones and working to begin the printing process.
A return to 8th grade US History found Rep. Ragan again sharing information about how a bill becomes a law and his role in the state legislature. In addition, this time in Mr. Linn's room, he provided a lot of interesting stories about Tennessee state history and some famous Tennesseans including Andrew Jackson, James K. Polk, and Andrew Johnson. He spoke about Davey Crockett, Sam Houston, and Tennessee's connections to The Alamo etc.
After we left Mr. Linn's class, we visited the library to learn more about the JMS makerspace and tools in the makerspace. Rep. Ragan was able to see a 3D printed dragon which was printed by a 3D pen. He also go to learn about how reading classes use the Dot and Dash robots to help teach students about coding. Rep. Ragan also got a chance to start a virtual business by using the Pizza Store game on our Osmo devices.
The visit was concluded with another discussion about state data including testing data etc. JMS staff shared with Rep. Ragan how we use internal data as a way to provide support, resources, and information to help our students learn and grow. It was a great visit and our students worked really hard along with our teachers to show the amazing efforts at JMS. We look forward to a potential second visit from Rep. Ragan and appreciate the legislator's time and feedback today.
Lego League has successful weekend
On January 18, 2020, the Jefferson Middle School FIRST Lego League (FLL) and Lego Sumo Bot teams hosted the 7th Atomic City Invitational. Forty-nine Lego robots entered and participated in either the FLL City Shapers Robot Challenge, a sumo bot competition, or entered a piece into the Lego Great Ball Contraption. These robots represented 22 different FIRST Lego League or Lego Robotics teams and over 130 middle school students. Robots started moving at 9:30am and the event concluded at 4pm. During that time we ran 85 sumo bot matches and 25 FLL Robot Challenge matches. Teams were paired up for the FLL City Shapers Alliance Challenge and given 90 seconds to run both robots on the same mat at the same time. This required the teams to communicate and work out the best strategy based on their robots strengths.
It was great to see teams that had been competing against each other working together. Volunteers from Oak Ridge High School’s FRC #4265 Secret City Wildbots helped run the event acting as the emcee and refs. A special thank you to the Tennessee Valley Lego Club for bringing their Lego Great Ball Contraption. It was amazing to see! It was a great day of Robotics in East Tennessee.
3rd Place Sumo: Flying Horse Donkey from Atomic Eagles
1st Place Alliance Challenge: NX36T Gen 3 with the Atomic Eagles
2nd Place Alliance Challenge: JMS Master Builders with Webb
3rd Place City Shapers Robot Challenge: JMS Master Builders
Jefferson Middle School students were awarded the following:
3rd Place Sumo: Flying Horse Donkey from Atomic Eagles
Photo credit: Yvonne Dalschen
STEM Night is 2/20/20
STEM Night: 2/20/20 We hope to see you there
This is a message to Save the Date for STEM Night which will be from 6 pm - 8 pm on Thursday February 20th at Jefferson Middle School. The goal of STEM night is to invite our families and students in to our school to learn more about STEM, careers in STEM and applications both at JMS and the world in which our students will work, live, and thrive in their futures.
If you have any resources or you work for a group that may want to be a part of the STEM night, please contact either of our STEM coaches Callie Painter at clpainter@ortn.edu or Alex Goldberg at agoldberg@ortn.edu.
We will keep reminding everyone of this date as we hope to have a HUGE turnout like we did last year!
Special Thanks to Dr. Trisler at East Tennessee Orthodontics for sponsoring our Staff t shirts designed to help promote the event. This is the second year Dr. Trisler's office, East Tennessee Orthodontics has provided the shirts for the JMS staff. Dr. Trisler's office has been very generous to provide these shirts to our staff and we are very grateful for their efforts.
List of great movies that are STEM related
https://www.commonsense.org/education/articles/10-great-movies-for-the-stem-classroom
Winter Weather Information
Winter Weather and Keeping up with School Information
It's that time of year where the winter weather can have an impact on school days. As we go through the winter months of January and February going into Spring Break, please remember the information below about Winter Weather and Oak Ridge Schools:
1. If a snow day is called by the Oak Ridge Schools, parents and staff members will receive an automated phone call from Oak Ridge Schools to inform them. In addition at JMS we will update through our Twitter account @JMS_Eagles.
2. You can also check the Oak Ridge Schools website www.ortn.edu
3. We are "Oak Ridge City Schools", so when checking on the status of a snow day, please do not confuse with Anderson County Schools
4. With bitterly cold weather we are having students go into the building to their respective areas (5th/6th to gym and 7th/8th to lobby) upon their arrival to campus for the mornings with bitterly cold temperatures
5. On non-delay days Supervision of students begins at 7 a.m. including car riders. The bus riders arrive between 7:00 am - 7:10 am, when buses are in the bus loop cars should not enter the bus loop. For a one hour or two hour delay please add the appropriate times (8:00 am for 1 hour delay; 9:00 am for 2 hour delay)
NAKA Japan Exchange Information for 7th grade students
Attention 7th Graders:
Five JMS students will be selected to represent the Oak Ridge Schools and the City of Oak Ridge as participants in the 30th Anniversary Naka-shi Student Exchange Program. Selected students along with chaperones will travel to Japan in July to explore parts of Japan and the Japanese culture.
Since it is an exchange program, the same students and chaperones who travel to Japan will in turn offer their Oak Ridge home and hospitality to a Japanese exchange student for a short time in August.
Applications for the Naka-Shi Student Exchange Program along with the parent permission and questionnaire forms are now available and may be picked up in the guidance department. Once the completed applications are in, the student interviews with the selection committee will begin.
Completed forms must be returned to the guidance office by Tuesday, January 21, so interested 7th graders should pick up the forms.
PTO News
Next PTO Meeting: Our next meeting will be Tuesday, January 28 at 7:40am in the Eagles Nest. Everyone is welcome and refreshments will be served!
Fundraiser Spotlight: Are you curious about how your fundraiser dollars are being used? Each week, the PTO section of this newsletter will feature a different department or classroom from JMS that was helped with money from our annual Direct Drive fundraiser! This week the spotlight is Mrs. Franco and Mrs. Taylor’s classrooms. Their classes have started using Flocabulary to learn. The Flocabulary software uses hip hop videos, games and quizzes to keep students engaged while learning about Social Studies. With money from the Direct Drive, PTO was able to purchase a 1 year subscription to this new learning tool for each of the classrooms. Thank you JMS families!
Counselors Corner
Communicating with Your Middle School Child - Using and Recognizing Body Language and Non-Communication
We hope that you had a great weekend and enjoyed your three-day weekend.. To quickly recap last week’s article before moving forward, we talked about being good listeners and what that meant for us as effective communicators. Good listeners give the speaker their undivided attention, they favor their right ear, avoid interruptions and redirecting the conversation to benefit their concerns, they show interest in what is being said, they do their best to set aside their own judgements, and they provide helpful feedback when the speaker is done. Now, let us discuss the topic for this week: using and recognizing body language and non-communication.
When we communicate things that we care about, we do so mainly using nonverbal signals. Nonverbal communication, or body language, includes facial expressions, body movement and gestures, eye contact, posture, the tone of your voice, and even your muscle tension and breathing. The way you look, listen, move, and react to another person tells them more about how you are feeling than words alone ever can.
Developing the ability to understand and use nonverbal communication can help you connect with others, express what you really mean, navigate challenging situations, and build better relationships at home and work.
· You can enhance effective communication by using open body language—arms uncrossed, standing with an open stance or sitting on the edge of your seat, and maintaining eye contact with the person you are talking to.
· You can also use body language to emphasize or enhance your verbal message—patting a friend on the back while complimenting him on his success, for example, or pounding your fists to underline your message.
Now, let us look at some tips on how to read and deliver non-verbal communication.
Tips for improving how you READ nonverbal communication:
1. Be aware of individual differences. People from different countries and cultures tend to use different nonverbal communication gestures, so it is important to take age, culture, religion, gender, and emotional state into account when reading body language signals. An American teen, a grieving widow, and an Asian businessman, for example, are likely to use nonverbal signals differently.
2. Look at nonverbal communication signals as a group. Do not read too much into a single gesture or nonverbal cue. Consider all of the nonverbal signals you receive, from eye contact to tone of voice to body language. Anyone can slip up occasionally and let eye contact slip, for example, or briefly cross their arms without meaning to. Consider the signals as a whole to get a better “read” on a person.
Tips for improving how you DELIVER nonverbal communication:
1. Use nonverbal signals that match up with your words. Nonverbal communication should reinforce what is being said, not contradict it. If you say one thing, but your body language says something else, your listener will likely feel you are being dishonest. For example, you cannot say “yes” while shaking your head no.
2. Adjust your nonverbal signals according to the context. The tone of your voice, for example, should be different when you are addressing a child than when you are addressing a group of adults. Similarly, take into account the emotional state and cultural background of the person you are interacting with.
3. Use body language to convey positive feelings even when you are not actually experiencing them. If you’re nervous about a situation—a job interview, important presentation, or first date, for example—you can use positive body language to signal confidence, even though you’re not feeling it. Instead of tentatively entering a room with your head down, eyes averted, and sliding into a chair, try standing tall with your shoulders back, smiling and maintaining eye contact, and delivering a firm handshake. It will make you feel more self-confident and help to put the other person at ease.
Nonverbal communication is vital to being an effective communicator and, often times, is overlooked or taken for granted. It is extremely possible hold a conversation with another person without saying anything. So, this week, consider your nonverbal signals. Do they align with the message you are trying to convey? Are they being used appropriately? Do others understand what you are saying in your nonverbal communication? Have you had a conversation just by using nonverbal communication?
January 24, 2020 - AVID applications for 8th grade students interested in the AVID program at the high school are due. The application can be found through their English teacher’s Canvas page. If there are any questions about AVID, the application process, or the due date please contact Mrs. McMahon (jamcmahon@ortn.edu) or Mr. Sprouse (cjsprouse@ortn.edu)
Dates:
Friday, January 24th: AVID Applications Due
Tuesday, February 4th: AVID Interviews
Thursday, February 6th: CCTE Fair
Tuesday, February 25th : 8th Grade Tours ORHS
Monday, March 16th: Friday, March 27th: Spring Break
Monday, March 16th: Thursday, March 19th: Intersession