2025 JMS Eagle Eye #24

It has been a while since we have been on a regular schedule. Lots of great instruction is planned for this week-- be sure to ask your students about it! We have lots of little updates and bright spots in the lives of our students below, so we will jump straight to it!

As always, we are here for your students. Let us know how we can help.

Mr. Phil Cox, Principal pcox@ortn.edu

Dr. Benjamin Fowler, Vice Principal bjfowler@ortn.edu

Mr. Michael Martin, Dean of Students mmartin@ortn.edu

• Monday 27 B Day

  • RadioActive Brix FLL Rm 223 2:45-4:30
  • Basketball District Tournament 4:00pm @ Jacksboro Middle School
  • Board of Education Meeting 5:00pm SAB

  
  

  Tuesday 28 A Day

  • Fire Drill 12:55
  • RadioActive Brix FLL Rm 223 2:45-4:30
  • Basketball District Tournament 4:00pm @ Jacksboro Middle School

  
  

  Wednesday 29 B day

  • Ski Club 1:00-9:00pm

  
  

  Thursday 30 A Day

  • RadioActive Brix FLL Rm 223 2:45-4:30

  
  

  Friday 31 B day

  • Kala Class to OR Newspaper
  • RadioActive Brix FLL Rm 223 2:45-4:30

  
  

  
  

  Bus duty

  • Gym – Franco and Easterday

  • Cafeteria – Goldberg

  • JPAC – B. Smith

  • Lobby – Roop and Ozcan

  
  

  Lunch duty
  
  • 5th Grade – Webb and McMahon
  • 6th Grade – Hensley and Wilson
  • 7th Grade – Zinobile and Hondorf
  • 8th Grade – Linn and Brewer

  
  

  
  

All Oak Ridge Schools are participating in the State of Tennessee 2-10 ELA Writing Exam field test. The students at JMS will take the test on Monday, February 10th. Like the regular TCAP exam, we will have a testing schedule and the whole building will be in test mode for the first two hours or so on February 10th.

We will begin Benchmark Testing February 24th.

TCAP testing will begin on Tuesday, April 15. The ELA tests will be April 15-16-17th. Good Friday is the 18th and we will be out of school. We will complete makeups the following Monday and then complete the bulk of our testing that week, April 21-25th. Any required makeups will take place the following week. We want to give you some heads up as you begin planning for that three day weekend.

Jefferson Middle School hosted the first “2025 Jefferson Winter Scholastic” Chess Tournament on Saturday, January 25th, 2025. We are pleased to announce we had a total number of 58 participants with participants in all four sections representing both rated and unrated players.

Congratulations to JMS students Audrey Large for placing 5th in the K-5 Novice Section and Korbyn Parkman for placing 1st in the K-12 Novice Section. Honorable Mentions to Acen Kala, Castiel Wilson, Logan Farrar, and Finnley Mindrup.

Premier Martial Arts is coming to speak to and give a demonstration to our PE classes on February 3rd and 4th (we changed it from the 6th and 7th due to the 8th graders going to ORHS). Premier Martial Arts is approved by ORS to speak to our students. We will be sending out a survey for parents who wish for their students to NOT participate.

The 5th grade will be traveling to ORHS on Thursday, February 27th to see The Addams Family musical, presented by Masquers. Permission slips went home on Friday.

Cost of the trip is $10, and we will be collecting the form and money NEXT week, January 27th through January 31st. Masquers has always had the highest production values and the experience will be delightful for our students. There are several JMS students in the production as well.

Five JMS students will be selected to represent the Oak Ridge Schools and the City of Oak Ridge as participants in the 35th 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 Monday, January 27th at noon, so interested 7th graders should pick up the forms.

The Jefferson Middle School FIRST Lego League(FLL) teams hosted the 11th Atomic City Invitational on January 18, 2025. Twenty-four area FLL/Robotics teams attended the event. There were 52 robots and 3 Lego Great Ball Contraption entries.

There were 29 entries for the double elimination sumo bot bracket for a total of 85 pool play and double elimination matches during the day. Lorkin the Destroyer from NX36T was the first place sumo bot. Loki from NX36T was the second place sumo bot and Jack Attack from NX36T was the third place sumo bot.

There were 20 entries for the FLL Masterpiece Robot Challenge. The Bionic Barrcudas won the first place award with a score of 340. The Brickbreakers won the second place award with a score of 330. NX36T won the third place robot with a score of 320. The Willow Brook RoBEARtics won the Rookie Award. The FLL teams were paired together to compete in a Masterpiece Robot Alliance Challenge. Tri Cities Youth Robotics and the Bionic Barracudas won first place and the Comet Slayers and Woodland Hawk Bots won second place in a single elimination bracket.

The Knoxville LUG (Lego User Group) set up a Lego Great ball contraption. Three teams of students entered designs to be included in the display for the day. Spartedos with Webb won the first place GBC award at the event and Plucky with RadioActive Brix and Secret Innovation won the second place GBC award.

The JMS FLL teams thank all the volunteers that helped make this event happen. We are especially thankful for the team members from Oak Ridge High School FRC 4265 Secret City Wildbots who volunteered as refs for this event.

Photo credits go to Yvonne Dalschen. Links to more pictures here: https://yphoto.smugmug.com/Events/Lego-League/2025-Atomic-City-Invitational

The following students have been nominated. Congratulations to these fantastic students!

Eagle Behavior

(Students recognized for their outstanding behavior in school, befitting a JMS Eagle)

Kinsley Jett

Eagle Excellence

(Students recognized for their outstanding achievement in school, befitting a JMS Eagle)

Tytan Chatman

Aurora Morris
Elias Jones
Matthew Bocanegra-Lozada

Eagle Expectations

(Students recognized for their outstanding manner of living up-to and exceeding JMS expectations in school, befitting a JMS Eagle)

Chris Duffle

Declan McMahon
Brooklyn German
Albert Coin

Eagle Accountability

(Students recognized for holding themselves accountable to the high expectations in school, befitting a JMS Eagle)

The 2025 District Basketball Tournament will began on Saturday, January 25th. The Jefferson girls team were the #5 seed and took on the #4 seed Norris on Saturday at 3pm. The Jefferson boys team were the #5 seed and took on the #4 seed Cherokee on Saturday at 4pm at Jacksboro Middle School. Neither team advanced at the tournament and this brings a close to the JMS 2024-2025 Basketball Season.

The 2025 Jefferson Track & Field season is right around the corner! There will be an interest meeting for all 6th, 7th and 8th graders interested in running track this spring on Tuesday, February 4th from 2:45pm-3:45pm in the JMS gym. In order to participate, all student-athletes will need a complete 2024-2025 sports physical. The entire 2024-2025 sports physical packet is posted on the JMS athletics page of our school website. Official track practice will begin on Thursday, February 13th. See Coach Byas, Coach Jessie, or Coach Bolling with any questions.

It is always recommended that JMS students have a change of clothes in their backpack or locker. Middle school students can get into a mess: be it in gym, working a lab experiment, the lunch line, or personal accident. With the weather alternating between hot and cold, a change of clothes can help a student avoid a dress code infraction and help them get back to class faster.

Please discuss with your student about a back up outfit. Thanks!

Flu, cold, and allergy season is upon us, and with it comes all of the coughing and sore throats. Most cough drops have active ingredients, meaning too many can be harmful, and there is potential for side effects or allergic reactions. For this reason, students cannot be allowed to bring them to school and/or keep them on their person. This is a district wide policy for student safety.

As with any other over-the-counter medication, if you would like your student to have cough drops at school, please bring them to the nurse and complete a medication administration form so that they can be administered in a safe way. The medication form can also be found on the JMS website under the "Forms" section of the "Parent + Student" tab.

Just a reminder: STUDENTS are NOT allowed to carry or bring medication to school. Parents must bring the medication in and fill out a form with the school nurse.

If a student has medications for asthma, allergies, or seizures (or any other potential emergencies) that needs to be with them at school, please reach out to me via phone (865-425-9338) or email (kcjones@ortn.edu) or come see me in the clinic.

Students and staff have had access to Adobe Express for the past year, but we wanted to take a moment to reintroduce it. Adobe Express can be accessed via Clever or by visiting https://express.adobe.com and using the “Already a user?” link on the page. When prompted to select a profile please choose “Oak Ridge Schools”. Use your ORS credentials to log in.

What is Adobe Express?

Adobe Express makes it easy to get started with tons of professionally designed templates and assets for media content, logos, and more. Feel like you’ve got the help of a trusted designer in your corner with the entire Adobe Stock* royalty-free photo collection plus a full library of Adobe Fonts at your fingertips. Create anything you need with intuitive tools that let you remove backgrounds, animate text, add your brand, and so much more. With just a few taps you can resize content and add Adobe Photoshop quality effects in a snap

Stress and anxiety are connected to physical sensations in our bodies. The relaxation skill of paced belly breathing helps us turn down these unpleasant physical sensations, which helps us to feel calm and in control. For example, Molly the hedgehog was feeling nervous during her dance competition. She felt many unpleasant physical sensations in her body. Thanks to her friend Hanna the turtle, Molly used paced belly breathing to calm her body and turn down her nervousness so she could complete the competition. PACED BELLY BREATHING is one of the key relaxation skills in the video. • Belly breathing is breathing slowly and deeply at a steady pace. By slowing their inhales and extending their exhales, your child can use their breath to harness control of their emotions. • Belly breathing balances out the carbon dioxide and oxygen in kids’ bodies, cutting off their fight, flight, or freeze response. It returns their mind and body to a calmer state.

Order your yearbook!

Have you been receiving emails from Lifetouch about yearbooks? These are legitimate. Lifetouch is who we moved to for photos AND yearbook this year. You can click on the link above or the links provided by the emails. Their customer service is really good, so if you have questions about the order, you should click on the customer service help button.

The JMS PTO would like to thank all the parents that came out for Open House. If you couldn't make it, we invite you to learn more about PTO activities and how you can get involved. Email us at jmseaglespto@gmail.com if you are interested!

We are moving our meetings to the evening times this year due to parent requests. We will start at 530 in the Jefferson Library. Look to this space for updates from JMS PTO President, Kayla Colwell.

We are at that time of year where absences have started to rack up and some parents are getting their notices about truancy. Below is the absence policy.

Excused Absences

Students must be in school unless the absence has been excused for one of the reasons listed below. It is the responsibility of each student’s parent/guardian to explain the student’s absence to the school in a manner satisfactory to the principal. Absences may be classified as either excused or unexcused as determined by the principal or his/her designee. Absences will only be excused for the following reasons:

1. Personal illness
1. Only seven days, whether consecutive or not can be excused by a parent note;
2. After a child has had (7) days, not necessarily consecutive, of illness related absences excused by a parent note, any future illness related absence must have a doctor’s note stating that the absence is medically necessary.
3. All parent and doctor notes must be turned into the school within three school days of the child returning to school.
2. Death in the family
3. Religious observations
4. Extreme weather conditions
5. Court appearance or legal mandates
6. Verifiable family emergency
7. School sponsored events
8. Principal has discretion to excuse absences based on the following:

1. The absence must be prearranged
2. The absence must not have an adverse effect on the child’s academic standing
3. The child must have a good attendance history
4. The child must have a good behavior record
5. The Director of Schools must agree

Any absence that does not fit any of the criteria listed above will be considered unexcused. The criteria listed above will also apply to tardies and early dismissals.

A student is considered legally truant following five (5) cumulative unexcused absences (TCA 49-6-3007).

The Board of Education may excuse children from compulsory attendance in accordance with guidelines developed by the State Board of Education (TCA 49-6- 3005). Students may be subject to withdrawal from Oak Ridge Schools after ten consecutive unexcused absences or fifteen unexcused absences during a semester (TCA 49-6-3017[c]). In cases of IEP students, the IEP team will convene to discuss appropriate options available.

You get a ton of forms at the start of the year, so here is a quick guide as to what is what and where.

Forms on Paper:

ORS district handbook have been sent home. There is a paper form in the front for you to sign. Please have you AND your student sign it and return it this week to your student's first period teacher.

Forms in ParentSquare:

• McKinney Vento
• Parent Occupational Survey

• Media Release

• Survey Opt-In form
• Biometric Form (Cafeteria Identification Form)

Forms in Skyward

These forms will need to be filled out in Skyward Family Access in web browser, not the app

• First Student- Bus

• Free and Reduced Lunch

If you have any issues with the forms, please reach out to John Smith, our Innovation coach at jrsmith@ortn.edu or Dr. Fowler at bjfowler@ortn.edu

Safety is our number one priority at Jefferson Middle School. The video below helps show the process for both drop off and pick up each day. We want our parents and students to be aware of the process in order to create the safest environment for all during these busy times. The following times below give you the best idea for drop off times:

There are two loops on campus. One loop on the gym/football field side of campus, which is a car drop off loop all morning long. The second loop on the softball field side is the bus loop at the beginning of the morning and becomes a car loop after buses leave. Buses will enter the loop from 7am - 7:10am each day. Please do not enter the loop if buses are present. In addition, please do not pass buses at any time while in the loop.

Please utilize the loop on the gym side to drop off your child each morning. When 5th grade students arrive on campus, they report to the gym until 7:30 am.

• Free and Reduced Lunch forms are now available in Skyward. Be sure to log in to your Skyward Account to complete the form. The sooner we get that processed, the sooner we can make sure we are serving your students as best we can.
• Students must be enrolled in a school to receive school meals. Students attending virtual academies are not eligible to participate in either of the federal school meal programs.
• Meals shall only be provided and served on days when school is in session.

For additional information, please visit:

https://www.ortn.edu/district/food-services/food-services/

The Board of Education believes that appropriate dress and grooming contribute to a productive learning environment. The Board expects students to give proper attention to personal cleanliness and to wear suitable clothing. Students are asked to wear simple, comfortable clothing that is clean and neat. Shoes should be always worn. Students are not to wear clothing which compromises safety or modesty; nor clothing which is disruptive to the educational process.

Students are prohibited from wearing:

1. Clothing or accessories which by reasonable judgment is considered unsafe, dangerous or a health hazard (examples include, but are not limited to wallet chains, spiked collars, necklaces or rings with spikes or sharp edges, oversized belt buckles, picks and combs.

2. Clothing or accessories which contain or suggest offensive or obscene symbols, signs, slogans or words degrading any gender, cultural, religious or ethnic values.

3. Clothing or accessories which contain or suggest language or symbols oriented toward violence, vandalism, sex, drugs, alcohol or tobacco.

4. Pajamas or clothing resembling sleepwear. This also includes house shoes.

5. Apparel

• a. Shirts, shorts, jeans or pants with holes, skirts and dresses that compromise modesty or are disruptive to the learning environment.
• b. The following attire is not permitted: bare midriffs; halter or tube tops; short shorts; tight, see through, or revealing clothing; or clothing which allows underwear to be exposed, such as sagging pants, spaghetti strap tops, muscle shirts.
• c. A belt is mandatory if pants or shorts will not stay at the waist without one.
• d. Hats, head coverings, bandanas, and sunglasses are not to be worn inside the school building.

6. Any articles which can be related to gang activity such as: items with gang names; gang initials; or individual gang member monikers; gang related jewelry; gang related tattoos; or self-inflicted scars. (TCA 49-6- 4215)

7. Any manner of grooming, which by its color, arrangement, trademark, or any other attribute that is gang related. This may include such items as shoelaces, belt buckles, hats or tattoos.

8. All students must wear shoes. It is strongly suggested that students wear shoes which either enclose the foot or are secured with heel straps. Flip flops are not allowed in grades PreK-4.

9. Heavy coats must be removed upon arrival at school, be placed in lockers and left there until the student leaves the building. (At campuses that have multiple buildings that require outside travel between classes, the principal may exercise discretion.)

The school building administrator may make exceptions to dress requirements to accommodate the special needs of classes (examples include but are not limited to science labs, welding, cooking labs) and/or certain sports/activities.

All students are expected to comply with the general dress code policy of the Oak Ridge School Board. Students who fail to comply with the Dress Code Policy shall be advised of the policy and offered the opportunity to take corrective action. The school shall attempt to contact the student's parents. Students who repeatedly fail to dress in accordance with the Dress Code Policy may be subject to disciplinary actions as set forth in the Oak Ridge Schools Discipline Code. The Administration reserves the right to judge what is appropriate or not.

Consequences for violations of the dress code guidelines will follow the ORS District Disciplinary Code.

https://www.ortn.edu/jefferson/supply-lists/

Please be sure to visit the link below to review this year's Student Handbook.

Students are required to turn off phones and place in lockers when they arrive to school. Students are not permitted to have phones throughout the building. In the event of an emergency, parents can contact the main phone line (425-9301) and students may use the main phone line to contact home.

Additionally, NO wired or wireless headphones or earbuds or personal electronic devices are permitted for use during the school day unless at the direction of a teacher for a classroom activity.

Due to concerns about social media and improper use of cell phones during the school day, please see detailed cell phone policy below:

1. Students must turn off cell phone upon arriving to campus and place in their locker.

2. Students are not to use cell phones during the school day unless instructed by a teacher. Teachers will make administration aware when they will be using phones in advance.

3. Any student found to be sharing or distributing inappropriate messages or pictures online will be immediately reported to our SRO and the Oak Ridge Police Department.

4. Per the ORS Code of Conduct, "students are prohibited from using personally owned devices to record (video, audio, photograph) others". This could also be considered Cyberbullying - the use of cell phones, social networking sites or other types of digital technology to harass, threaten, discriminate, or intimidate others.

Any violation of the cell phone policy will lead to action from administration including but not limited to consequences below:

1st violation: student cell phone, headphones, earbuds, or personal electronic devices will be confiscated and sent to the office. Student will be issued a warning in Skyward and phone will be kept in the office until parent/guardian comes to the school to pick up the phone.

2nd violation: student cell phone, headphones, earbuds, or personal electronic devices will be confiscated and sent to the office. Student will be assigned an after-school detention in Skyward and phone will be kept in the office until parent/guardian comes to the school to pick up the phone.

3rd violation: student cell phone, headphones, earbuds, or personal electronic devices will be confiscated and sent to the office. Student will be issued ISS in Skyward and phone will be kept in the office until parent/guardian comes to the school to pick up the phone.

4th violation: student cell phone, headphones, earbuds, or personal electronic devices will be confiscated and sent to the office. Student will be issued an OSS in Skyward and phone will be kept in the office until parent/guardian comes to the school to pick up the phone. In addition, student may lose privilege of bringing phone to school for a time to be determined.

SECURE ENTRANCE TELEPHONE USAGE

School phones are for business and emergency use only. Students who are required to remain after school to make up work or for other reasons can call to arrange a ride home.

Canvas is our learning management system. We utilize Canvas in order to communicate with students and parents including announcements, information that is important to the class, links to resources to help support in class learning and also digital assignments.

Our teachers are AMAZING in the amount of detail they provide on their Canvas page. We encourage parents to spend 10 minutes each week with their child logged on to Canvas and read the details for each teacher's page, announcements, and assignments.

In Canvas our teachers work to provide:

• Announcements - A weekly look at what will be taught throughout the week
• Assignments - Some assignments will be digital and completed through Canvas and some will be analog and completed on paper. The goal for teachers here is to update with information to help explain the assignment and the due date.
• Calendar - A student calendar that shows all of the student's class and helps to color code each. The calendar allows for parents to see due dates for assignments, quiz and test dates

To learn more about Canvas and how we use it each day, please access the video below.