Jackson Journal

The holiday season can be a wonderful yet challenging time for maintaining students' focus and learning in elementary schools. Striking a balance between keeping students engaged academically and celebrating the festive spirit is essential. Here’s why this balance is important and how it can be achieved:

Why Staying Focused Matters

1. Maintaining Routines:

   • Children thrive on routines, and the holiday season can disrupt them. Keeping a sense of normalcy helps students stay grounded and ready to learn. Attendance matters!

2. Preventing Learning Gaps:

   • The weeks leading up to holidays are still crucial for academic progress. Missing out on learning opportunities can create gaps that are harder to bridge later.

3. Fostering Discipline:

• Staying engaged during festive distractions teaches children self-discipline and focus, skills that benefit them beyond school.

Staff at Jackson will continue to make learning engaging, yet academic throughout this hectic time of year. Thank you to all our Jackson families for instilling the importance of education into your children. Have a safe month of December!

Jackson Parents/Guardians,

School safety is critical to high quality learning and the Manitowoc Public School District utilizes the K12 Standard Response Protocol (SRP/SRM) to provide a consistent safety response at all schools. The SRP provides five safety response protocols. Those five responses are SECURE - LOCKDOWN - EVACUATE - SHELTER - HOLD. The SRP provides for a standard response that is shared and trained with students, staff, visitors and with our first responders from the Fire and Police Departments.

“A uniform, planned, and practiced response to any incident is the foundation of a safe school. The SRP is action-based, flexible, and easy to learn. It rationally organizes tactics for response to weather events, fires, accidents, intruders and other threats to student safety.” iloveuguys.org

Each month throughout the school year, all Manitowoc Public Schools will train on one of the five responses. The training is designed to create knowledge, answer questions, and build familiarity for all students, staff and visitors. This month (December) we will conduct an unannounced Secure on our campus. A Secure is utilized when there is a threat or serious issue outside of the school building. During a Secure, staff bring all students inside, lock outside doors, and take attendance. Learning continues as usual inside the school building during a Secure. Students and staff remain inside the school building until the “all clear” is given.

Please take time each month to ask your child what safety response protocol they practiced and see if they have questions or ideas about how these safety steps work and how they could be used in other places beyond school. The SRP can be utilized in many places for more information please see iloveuguys.org.

Should you have questions, feel free to reach out, 920-663-9522.

Thank you

Jill DeRosier, Principal

Jackson Elementary School

Congratulations to Jackson Elementary School for having a 56% of our students reading at grade

level proficiency by the end of the first quarter! This was done in only a six-week time frame. It is

typical to see the biggest growth turn around at semester. So, I cannot wait to see what academic

growth our students will gain at the end of January. The following are ways for you to help your

child at home:

KinderRoots Readers:

• Explain that the title is the name of a book.
• The author writes words.
• The illustrator draws pictures.
• Hold a book in the correct direction.
• Turn pages one at a time from front to back.
• Read from top to bottom of a page.
• Read from left to right.
• Words are separated by spaces.

Roots Readers:

• Talk about new words.
• Ask, “What do you think will happen next?”
• Ask, “What part of the story did you like best?”
• Ask, “Why did you like this part?”

• Ask, "What is the best part of the story? Why?"
• Ask, "What is the worst part of the story? Why?"
• Ask, "Is there a character you don’t like? Why don’t you like this character?"
• Ask, "If you could trade place with one of the characters, which one would it be and why?"
• Ask, "Where does the story take place? Is it real or fictional? Have you ever visited a place like the setting of the story?"
• Ask, "What is the most interesting fact you learned in this book?"
• Ask, "What surprised you the most in this book?"
• Ask, "How did you feel about this book? Would you recommend it to someone else? Why or why not?"
• Ask, "Would you like to read another book by this author? Why or why not?"
• Ask, "Would you give this book a thumbs up or a thumbs down? Why?"
• Ask, "What question would you like to ask the author of this book?"

Tips to remember about reading for ALL levels:

• Reading is fun.
• Keep practice time positive and consistent.
• Celebrate every small success.

• The more your child wants to read and practices reading, the better reader he or she will be.
• Practicing and celebrating with your child is the best thing that you can do to help them learn to read.
• Your child is a reader!

Thank you so much for all of your support and contributing to your child’s literacy success! May the

spirit of the season bring you joy and peace.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me:

Dean Sleger

slegerd@mpsd.school

The winter concert is coming up on December 19th at Jackson! I am very excited about this year’s concert! The students are very musical and have been working very hard on their music for the concert, so I am expecting it to be great! All students will perform in both concerts. Each student is important to the success of the program. Please have your student wear their best clothes for the concerts. Thank you for your support, it is truly a joy to work with your children!

• There will be 2 performances of the concert; 10:30am for last names A-L and 1:30pm for last names M-Z. Doors will be unlocked 20 minutes prior to the start of the concert.
• Parking is an issue around Jackson. Street parking only for the 10:30 concert; parking will be available in the church parking lot for the 1:30 concert. Please don't park at the church for the 10:30 concert because they are also having a holiday concert at that time.
• Due to our gym being used for the concert, the students will be eating in classrooms on 12/18 for dress rehearsal and 12/19 for concert day. Bag lunches make it easier for students to get back to classrooms without dropping trays. If your child is choosing a bag school lunch vs a lunch from home, they will have the same lunch both days (PB&J or Turkey and Cheese).
• THANK YOU Mrs. Shackelford for all of the hard work you put into making this concert the very best!🎵🎄

Concert Guidelines (Audience members)

1. Refrain from talking: This is the first and most important rule. Please keep conversation or comments about the performance with your neighbors to a quiet minimum while students are performing.

2. Turn off pagers, cell phones, watch alarms, and other electronics: While many phones and pagers now have very musical rings, they don’t always fit with the music, nor do they provide pleasant sounds for your neighbors. This includes electronic devices that children might be playing with and video recording devices. Please silence all sounds. (Not just the ringer; notifications sounds are often a separate setting on smartphones)

3. Do not leave as soon as your child’s portion of the concert is over. All of the students deserve a full audience for their performances.

4. Do not leave while students are performing: Wait for a break in the concert to visit the restroom, unless there is an emergency or you are carrying a screaming child.

5. Come to the concert expecting the best: You just might be surprised how good your child and their classmates can sound!

6. Students will not be dismissed immediately after the concert. We still have a portion of the school day left after the concert, and allowing anyone to take a child directly from the concert area is a safety concern.

Concert Expectations (students)

Dress attire: Students are asked to wear their best clothes to the concert. Dress clothes are the best, denim is also acceptable if it is clean and not distressed. Shirts are best if they are a plain, solid colored shirt - if possible, NO pictures or letters - patterns are fine, and clean shoes that are in good repair (preferably dress shoes). Please have girls wear something that is not sheer under them.

If this is an issue for your family, please contact me at shackelfordd@mpsd.schools or 920-663-9299.

Concert Etiquette: Students are expected to show good concert behavior as outlined above and discussed in class.

Did you know United One Credit Union has a branch at Jackson School that is open on Friday mornings from 8:30-9:00? Any student or staff member with an account at United One can deposit at the Jackson Branch on Fridays. Any student or staff member without an account can sign up to get one and start depositing. The best time to start saving is now. Saving even a small amount every week can lead to great gains.

Thank you all staff, students, parents and community members for making the DARE program a success for our Jackson 5th graders. If you have a 5th grade student, keep those open conversations going about making good choices. Sometimes choices are tough, but we need to continue to teach them that making the right one can affect their lives forever.

Monday (12/16) - Holly Jolly Holiday

• Wear Red & Green

Tuesday (12/17) - Holiday Hat Day

• Wear your favorite holiday hat or hair accessory

Wednesday (12/18) - Holiday Spirit

• Wear your favorite Holiday or winter Shirt/sweater and festive attire.

Thursday (12/19) - Deck the Halls

• Dress in your Holiday Best! Join us for the holiday concert wearing your best Holiday attire.

Friday (12/20) - Long Winter's Nap

• Come to school in your favorite pajamas

I'm extremely excited to announce that summer school for Jackson students will be held at Jackson School! Jackson Summer Academy will be FUN, FUN, FUN (with some academics), starting the week of June 23-27th, off the week of July 4th, July 7-18th from 8am-12pm. Mark your calendars. More information will be coming out in the near future.

December:

6th - Staff Development Day - No School for Students

10th - PTO Dine out at Culvers - 4:00pm-7:00pm

19th - Winter Concert -

• 10:30am-11:30am (Last names A-L)
• 1:30pm-2:30pm (Last names M-Z)

23rd-31st - Winter Break

January:

1st- Winter Break

2nd - School Resumes

20th - No School for Staff & Students

23rd - End of 2nd Quarter

24th - Records Day - No School

27th - Staff Development Day - No School