

Andrew Jackson Middle School
02-03-25
A Message From the Administration
Our first dance incentive for students was excellent and everyone who attended had a great time! We look forward to sharing some pictures in next week's newsletter. We encourage all students to continue to work hard to participate in future incentives celebrating their achievements!
The cell phone policy, while not new to middle school, has been a huge success for our students. Having cell phones turned off alleviates the urge to check phones and multi- task in classrooms. We encourage you to allow this policy to work for your child as studies have noted the increase in student learning when cell phone distractions are not part of their day. Please help us with this by not texting your student during the day. While student's phones are to be turned off, when a student forgets and you text them, they are more apt to concentrate on this distraction. If you have a valid message that needs to be relayed to your student, please call the front office and we can add it to students' announcements.
Finally, our attendance recovery program has started. If your student already received a letter to recover absences above 10, please make sure they get this taken care of quickly. Recovery is held on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 3:45- 4:45. Before a student can stay for recovery, they must return the signed back portion of the letter with contact information to Ms. Turner.
We hope you had a great weekend and we look forward to a fantastic week!
Cell Phone Policy
Attendance
All medical and parent notes must be submitted within two days after the student has returned to school. The student can turn these into the front office or you can email them to Teresa.whitley@lcsd.k12.sc.us.
The Library Chronicles
During Flex Time in the library, students have had the opportunity to sign up for D.E.A.R. (Drop Everything and Read) or Makerspace Activities. Students who signed up for Book Club recently finished reading Where the Sky Lives by Margaret Dilloway. Now, they are busy brainstorming ideas for book trailers or a book banner to be entered in a statewide contest sponsored by the SC Association of School Librarians. Winners of the book trailer and book banner contest will be announced at the SCASL Conference in March.
Counselors' Connection
8th grade parents need to visit the AJMS website and click on the "Counseling" tab as soon as possible to register for an Individual Graduation Plan (IGP) and rising 9th grader course registration meeting. The AJMS counselors will hold IGP and 9th grade registration meetings throughout the month of February. These meetings are required for all 8th grade students.
It is critical that all parents have set up parent portal access in PowerSchool. If you have not set up a parent portal account, please call the school at (803) 475-6021 for assistance. You must have a parent portal account in order to complete the returning student registration for the 2025-2026 school year.
News From The Nurse!
Any medication prescription or over the counter must be brought in the original container and have a district medication permission form signed by the parent or guardian and the doctor if needed.
Coaches Hub: Athletic Updates
On Monday, February 3rd, Basketball travels to A.R. Rucker with a 5:30 start time.
On Thursday, February 6th, Basketball hits the road for the final time to take on Buford with a 5:30 start time.
Spring Sports tryouts begin on February 3rd.
Boys Soccer- Feb 3rd, 6-7:30
-Feb 4th, 6:30-8
Girls Soccer- Feb 3rd, 4-5:30
Baseball- Feb 3rd-4th, 4-5:30
Softball- Feb 3rd-4th, 4:15-6:15
Golf- Feb 3rd-4th, 4-6 at the Kershaw Golf Club. Must provide your own clubs.
Track- Feb 3rd, 4:15-5:30
Reminder that all athletes must have a physical, parent permission, emergency contact, and concussion forms either on file already or signed and turned in upon arrival to tryouts.
No forms=no tryouts.
Please contact Mr. Hanna if you have any questions about forms or tryouts.
The Other Core Classes
From Fine Arts
FOCUS applications are posted on the AJMS website for interested students. The application deadline is March 7, 2025.
Andrew Jackson Middle School will host Mr. Chad Bowers for a four-day artist-in-residency during the week of February 10th, 2025. Mr. Bowers is a comics writer and creator from Ballentine, SC, known for his work on X-men ‘92. A graduate of the University of South Carolina’s Liberal Arts program, Chad has also produced comics and graphic novels for major publishers like PBS, Image Comics, IDW Publishing, and ONI Press.
During his visit, he will work with Visual Art students in a Meet and Greet Art Workshop. He will additionally join Mrs. Griffin's 8th Grade ELA class towards the end of their unit on Shakespeare's Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. During this unit, students have read and performed aspects of the play using both the script of the play, film, and graphic novels. The students have evaluated and critiqued the various presentations of the story as well as their impact on the audience. Mr. Bowers will build upon this foundation and will then work with students to transform novels or stories of their choice into their own graphic novels or graphic stories.
With his visit to Mrs. Deese’s 7th grade classrooms, Mr. Chad Bowers will be working within the unit "Chasing the Impossible," where students have been focusing on the essential question: What makes a dream worth pursuing? Focusing on elements of literary text and author's craft, the experience will build student understanding in several key academic areas.
Arts Integration is at the heart of instruction at Andrew Jackson Middle School and a focus of this residency. AJMS is an Arts in the Basic Curriculum certified-school from the South Carolina Arts Commission.
2025 Dancing with the Stars this Weekend!
Come join and cheer on some fantastic dancers at our annual fundraiser for the Focus Program! The fun begins on Saturday night, February 8th at 7 pm. Tickets are on sale at Preppy Pineapple and Genelles in Lancaster and in the AJMS Front Office for $20. We have a great list of Celebrity Dancers and a few famous judges (Lancaster County Superintendent Dr. Fitzpatrick will be one of them)! Come out and support the Fine Arts Focus program for a great evening! Get your tickets today!
From Computer
Computer: Shout Out to the 6th graders for doing well on their keyboard quiz.
7th graders working on the Handless Solo Cup Challenge, implementing teamwork and communication skills discussed during our Employability Skills Module in Fundamentals Of Computing.
Shout Out to the 8th graders for investing so much into their Budget Project.
Academic and Cognitive Empowerment
In Mrs. Leaphart and Mrs. Connell’s class, students worked on reading benchmarks, continued our writing unit, and reviewed parts of speech.
In class with Mr. Cauthen and Mrs. Jackson, students worked on geometry, which included lines, line segments, rays, parallel lines, intersecting lines, and perpendicular lines. They also introduced the protractor and students were able to measure angles.
This week, Mrs. Bowers began her unit for Black History Month by reviewing the life and the great acts of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Next week students will begin to deep dive into the lives of other prominent black figures who shaped today’s society.
Mrs. Mize is preparing to begin lessons on biomes and ecosystems, where she would like for students to build their own dioramas. If you have a shoebox that you would like to donate, please send them with your student. Thank you!
Ms. Hoyer and Ms. Robertson’s classes have been reviewing long division and solving word problems in Math Resource. They have been editing paragraphs for convention errors and writing complete sentences in ELA Resource.
Mrs. Collins and Mrs. Faulkenberry’s students completed a piece of writing describing their own "Winter Wonderland." They began a virtual notebook of idioms, discussed their meanings and usage, and discussed how idioms differ across languages. Math students raced the clock to complete an interactive math worksheet and solved multi-step equations after completing an EdPuzzle.
Ms. Cunningham and Ms. Estridge’s students practiced contractions and multiplication with around the room activities.
Grade Level News
Valiant 6
Math students are learning about positive and negative numbers and the value of zero in the real world.
We are in our Medieval Times Era in Social Studies. During FLEX, we played some games that originated in the Middle Ages: Skittles, Ring Toss, and Blind Man’s Bluff.
Magnificent 7
Please ensure your students are reading in a library book or book of choice each night. Studies show that students who read nightly have improved literacy skills, increased vocabulary, enhanced comprehension, strong writing abilities, and a potential to boost concentration, all while potentially promoting relaxation and better sleeping habits.
Our seventh grade math classes have begun a unit on percent. Many times, we hear our students say, "When am I ever going to use this?" Percent is used frequently in our daily lives with discounts, tax, tip, etc. We encourage you to have conversations with your child about percentages while you are at the store computing a discount, figuring the tip at a restaurant, and of course, don't forget sales tax!
Our honors math students covered percent last year but could also benefit from these conversations as we will be reviewing it this year. They just finished graphing linear equations, and our next unit is solving systems of equations.
Outstanding 8
ELA: All of Mrs. Griffin's students should still be reading independently. Please encourage them as they work toward their culminating reading assignment, which will count as a test grade.
Science: Students in Ms. Hilton’s class are working on a project called "Story in Our Stars" where the students are creating their own constellation and a story to go with it. Please ask them to share with you as they make progress.
Math 8: This week students in Ms. Whitten’s class used their skills with data displays in a culminating project where they created, analyzed and predicted how our handspans relate to the number of starburst we can gather in one hand.
They wrapped up their week with a Target Competition after using Power Rules to simplify expressions.
Contact Info
Andrew Jackson Middle School
Principal: Chris TimmonsAsst. Principal: Nick Thompson
Asst. Principal: Heather Turner
Main Office: 803-475-6021
Website: https://ajms.lancastercsd.com/
Location: 6865 Kershaw Camden Hwy. Kershaw, SC 29067
Fax: 839-269-3027
Facebook: