Parent Newsletter
March 4th - 8th
Spring Break is Mar. 11th - 22nd
Spring Intersession is March 11th - 14th
Last Week Before Spring Break
- A look at the week ahead
- Spring Intersession
- Helping to encourage Girls in STEM
- Finishing the Nine Weeks Strong
- Preparing for the 4th Nine Weeks
- Why 21st century skills?
- Counselor Corner
Thanks for all that you do to support Jefferson Middle School,
Phil Cox, Principal
Chris Layton, Vice Principal
Jenifer Laurendine, Dean of Students
A Look at the Week Ahead
Monday-4
A day
Benchmark Assessment in ELA classes
Environmental Club 2:45-4:00
Chess Club 2:45-3:45 Library
Track Practice 2:45-4:30
Tuesday-5
B day
Benchmark Assessment in ELA classes
Interact Club 2:45-4:00-Room 311 (Painter)
Homework help for 5th/6th graders 7:00-7:30-Room 219 (Corrigan)
Library Club 2:45-3:30
Science Bowl 2:45-4:00-Room 317 (Little)
Homework help for 5th/6th graders 2:45-3:30-Room 319 (Martin)
Homework help for 7th/8th graders 2:45-3:30-Room 301 (Hondorf) Track Practice 2:45-4:30
Wednesday-6
A day
FCA 7:10-7:30-JPAC
Track Practice 12:45-2:30
Thursday-7
B day
8th Grade Girls to STEM Conference at AMSE 7:50-2:00
Track & Field (Practice) Meet at Lenoir City Middle School-4:45
Homework help for 5th/6th graders 7:00-7:30-Room 219 (Corrigan)
Math Club Practice 2:45-4:00-Room 203 (Tracey)
Homework help for 5th/6th graders 2:45-3:30-Room 319 (Martin)
Friday-8
A day
Youth for Christ 7:00-JPAC
End of 3rd Grading Period
Track Practice 2:45-4:30
Spring Intersession
Jefferson Middle School is dedicated to providing students with the tools needed to be successful. Twice a year, Jefferson offers an intersession during Fall and Spring Breaks. The intent is to offer a program that will provide either reinforcement of prior skills or enrichment to further them. Students will be in two courses, unless they sign-up for Mapping Student Possibilities, Bowling or choose the full Sports and Conditioning section.
Spring Intersession will be offered from Monday, March 11th – Thursday, March 14th from 8:30-11:30 each day. Breakfast and lunch WILL NOT be provided. Please plan accordingly!
A few things to consider:
1. Intersession is FREE!! (bowling requires fee in order to use bowling center facilities)
2. Students will need to choose their top three options. While we hope each student will be able to participate in their top choices, we are limited in space for each class.
3. Forms are due back to homeroom teachers by Friday, March 1st.
4. Transportation to and from JMS will be provided by First Student bus services.
Courses
· Math Intervention: Grades 5 – 8
· Reading Intervention: Grades 5 – 8
· Sports and Conditioning
· Mapping Student Possibilities
· Bowling
· Eagle Lab - Creative STEM-Centered Brain-Teasing Activities
· Why Stay in School?
Math Intervention grades 5-8
This course will help students struggling in math by focusing on skills that were taught during the first three terms. Students will receive additional math skill development and strengthen a positive attitude through activities and problem-solving. Students should bring their devices to work on math skills. One section of math intervention will work to use business and personal finance skills to teach adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing decimals. Students can potentially earn credit towards their third nine weeks grade!
Reading Intervention grades 5-8
This course will help struggling readers become more confident in their reading and writing. Students will work on areas of deficiency, allowing them to grow in their abilities to fluently read and comprehend material more easily. For the 5th and 6th grades, we will use a short novel to keep the students engaged, and apply reading strategies to improve comprehension. For 7th and 8th grades, we will use the Scholastic Language Arts Scope to help improve reading and writing skills. There are two sections of this for grades 5 – 6, and 7 – 8.
Sports and Conditioning
Sports and Conditioning will provide students an opportunity to exercise and play sports in a fun environment. The sessions will focus on flexibility, strength and conditioning, and introductions to the basics of different sports such as football. The sessions will include classroom instruction, agilities and exercises, and conclude with fun competitive games such as ultimate football, angle ball, basketball, and battle ball. Students should wear appropriate gym clothes and tennis shoes, and bring cleats if available. Students can choose to participate for the entire three hour period, or one session.
Mapping Student Possibilities (Grades 6th – 8th)
Students will learn about one of the fastest growing technological fields, the basics of online mapping capabilities using ArcGIS Online (AGO), and will use an online tutorial to create a mapping application. Students will create a map (as individuals or with a partner) to enter into the 2019 Map Competition for Tennessee Students. For this year's contest you must focus on content within Tennessee's borders and present it as an ArcGIS Story Map. The five maps judged the best in the state for the middle school division will be awarded a $100 gift card (per map). The winning middle school map in Tennessee will be submitted for the national middle school competition. Please consider the competitive nature of a contest with awards. Attending this academically enriching offering will require some dedication and attention to detail. Contest details can be found at: https://sites.google.com/utk.edu/tn-ago-contest/. This elective will meet all three hours and will have scheduled breaks.
Bowling
Let's go have some fun bowling. This session will be a 3 hour course Monday through Thursday. We will learn: The history of bowling, terms, rules, scoring, and skills as we bowl each of the 4 days. Transportation will be provided to and from the Oak Ridge Bowling Alley but there will be a small fee to cover our games and bowling shoes. There is a $20 fee for the week that will cover the cost of two games per day. Payments need to be made prior to intersession and checks need to be made out to Jefferson Middle School. Transportation will be provided from Jefferson to the Oak Ridge Bowling Center and back to Jefferson.
Eagle Lab - Creative STEM-Centered Brain-Teasing Activities
Students will be able to explore using items from the JMS Library Makerspace like the Ozobots, Osmo, 3-D pens, green screen filming, robots, Little Bits, and Snap Circuits. This will be a self-paced and student-driven activity time with teachers serving as facilitators of their learning.
Why Stay in School??
We will look at the impact education has on future careers, salaries, goal setting, and budgeting, based on what you think your future will entail. Consider asking yourself, What interests you?, What motivates you?, Why does school matter? What are your future goals? This project will require that you use mathematics to justify your answers to these questions and help ensure you are making a smart decision.
Working to Promote STEM
A major goal for our school after our first accreditation through Advanced Ed STEM certification was to find more ways to increase opportunities for those who are underrepresented in STEM fields. This partnership with FEW is working to help support our female students and their access to STEM fields and opportunities. Just last year, an artist took to redesigning the Disney Princesses. He worked to take each of the characters and redefine their characters into modern day careers. Learn more about the artists motivation here at this link and also you can see the redefined Princesses in the video below.
PTO News
Thank you for your teacher luncheon donations! A huge THANK YOU to all the JMS parents that brought in food for the teacher and staff luncheon. So many yummy and pretty dishes!! Thank you JMS families!
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 on Mr. Goldberg’s 6th Grade Math Class. Students improve critical thinking and problem solving skills by using a program called Digital Breakout Box. With funds from the PTO, Mr. Goldberg was able to purchase a subscription to this computer program which asks students to work their way through a series of “locks” associated with a variety of questions. The locks could be solved with a number combination, a word, or even directional arrows. The clues are embedded within a picture that may lead the students to research something that happened in history or draw a conclusion or finish a pattern. They can collaborate while trying to decipher the clues and when they unlock everything, they have “broken out.” Thank you JMS families!
If you have questions about how you can get involved with PTO at JMS, please contact Sandy Pelletier sandy@issi.net
Preparing for the Fourth Nine Weeks
2. Give your best effort and complete ALL assignments! While completion does not always result in an A or a perfect score, it definitely beats the negatives of receiving a Zero! When students simply do not submit an assignment, it is very difficult to help themselves and their grades.
3. Your effort is the most important factor in your success. To simply not try, not submit, not turn in, or give zero effort is not a reflection of what you can do, but rather a reflection of what you are willing to do.
4. Get Organized! So many hurdles and excuses have been eliminated in terms of your ability to get organized. You are digital natives, provided with a wonderful tool and resource in the laptop issued to you by the Oak Ridge Schools complete with a learning management system in Canvas. Our teachers work hard to update Canvas with weekly announcements, weekly grade updates, resources to help you learn etc. To simply ignore in class instruction, Canvas tools, and your teacher is not wise.
5. Find solutions rather than excuses! Yes, there may be a few reasons why completing your assignments can be challenging. There may even be some reasons that are truly concerning and you may need to reach out for help. However, in many cases, students simply choose to "not complete" something in hopes that either it won't count that much or they can do it later (if they have a teacher willing to take late work).
6. Just like life, late work has consequences. Sometimes it may be a reduction in point and in some cases your teacher may not take it at all. As an adult one day, you will find that being late on your work or paying your bills etc. also has consequences. Get focused, use the tools at your disposal and work to give your best effort and complete your work.
One week left in the Third Nine Weeks
1. Your overall grade for the school year is cumulative. The first nine weeks through the fourth nine weeks completes your overall grade. This means a really bad nine weeks could have a major impact on your overall grade. So for example, if you have a low F right now (30% or lower) it may still say F on your report card by the end of the nine weeks, but if you could make that a 63% it would make a HUGE difference in your overall grade.
2. We talk about Grit all the time in our newsletters. Now is the time to be gritty! You have 15 days left in this nine weeks to do your best, submit ALL of your assignments and give your best efforts. Grit is the intangible skill that our students will need to be successful as they move into their futures.
3. Promote a growth mindset. You need to continue to work hard and grow through the next three weeks. As we enter the fourth nine weeks much of the information you learn now will still be vital in the next nine weeks. We want to see you give your best efforts and grow to be a better learner and student. ALL students are capable of learning and growing but sometimes it takes extra efforts and continued focus to want to learn and grow.
Why 21st Century Skills are needed for our students?
This week we will look to begin a deep dive into these topics and provide resources on how these topics, tools, and resources are designed to help our students be prepared for the 21st century and the jobs of their future.
Our students are growing up in a world advanced by technology and communication beyond anything most experts could have predicted from even twenty years ago. Many of the skills that were valued in the economy and education of the 20th century have changed. The mastery of content and ability to provide that knowledge is no longer the paramount skill in the 21st century that guarantees success for our students. In addition to the content knowledge that our students attain, it is also vital for our students to add needed 21st century skills.
Why Project Based Learning?
The ideas and goals behind PBLs (Project Based Learning / Problem Based Learning) are to help students develop 21st century skills including the Four C's (critical thinking, collaboration, communication, and creativity). Our students will not only need to have mastery of content, but they will also have to have these skills to support their career choices in the future. Many careers and jobs of the 20th century will not continue to be available in the future and we also know from estimates that there are many rising careers that will soon generate for our students.
Through the instructional strategy of PBLs we want our students to develop these 21st century skills while working to learn through problem solving. Many schools around the country and the world are working to develop these skills through problem solving and designing projects for students. In the project design and completion our goal is to help students exemplify these skills through their ideas of solving a real world problem. The following article helps to give some more information and details.
What are 21st century skills?
We have discussed the skills needed for our students as they embark on new ideas and careers for the 21st century. The skills as mentioned above in the 4 C's are critical because they will help our students learn how to work in the global market of their future. In addition, we have discussed important skills like soft skills, grit, and growth mindset. It is vital for our students to continuously learn, grow and pursue lifelong education. The jobs and careers of their future will depend greatly on their ability to pursue these skills in the field or fields of their choice.
The article above outlines some of these skills needed by our students as they work to pursue their college and career readiness. The comments from the article are outlined as follows:
These 21st century skills include
- personal and social responsibility
- planning, critical thinking, reasoning, and creativity
- strong communication skills, both for interpersonal and presentation needs
- cross-cultural understanding
- visualizing and decision making
- knowing how and when to use technology and choosing the most appropriate tool for the task
What are the skills our students will need for success in their future?
The big question is how do opportunities of this nature including STEM and PBLs give students skills they will need. The following article goes on to describe the skills that our students will need. The article from Edutopia states:
At a conference on innovative teaching and learning, I attended a memorable panel conversation about the skills that students should develop by the time they start college or enter a career. The panel was made up of men and women who headed large and small businesses, and the skills they wanted incoming employees to have were:
- Communication for internal and external clients
- Empathy
- Collaboration
- Problem solving
- Initiative
- Strong work ethic
Important Dates
Important Dates
1)Monday, March 11th – Thursday, March 14th – Intersession
2)Monday, March 11th – Friday, March 22nd – Spring Break
3)Monday, April 15th – Friday, May 3rd – State TNReady Testing
Counselor Corner
Good evening from the Counseling office until we return from Spring break. We have five more days of school and five more days of Acts of Kindness. The last theme we would like to determine is: Are there a certain type of kindness that will make us happier?
According to Elizabeth Hopper there is a new study that investigates four types of kindness practices to determine which one has the greatest benefit.
Lately, the news has stated that helping others is good for your well-being. For example, studies suggest that people who spend money on others become happier and actually reduce their blood pressure. Other research has found that people who volunteer improve their mental health over time.
A few questions that Elizabeth Hopper says we must ask ourselves are: If we decide to practice more kindness, are all types of kind acts equally rewarding? Would helping out a family member boost our happiness more or less than volunteering among strangers?
A new study published in The Journal of Social Psychology sought to test out this question by investigating how different types of kind acts affect our happiness. Ultimately, the researchers found that a wide range of kind activities are good for us—and we don’t have to lose ourselves as person to tap into the benefits.
Researchers asked 683 adults from over two dozen countries—from the United States and Brazil to the United Kingdom and South Africa—to complete at least one act of kindness daily for a week, such as helping a neighbor, writing a thank you card, or paying for someone’s movie ticket. People were encouraged to carry out more kind acts—or different types of kind acts—than they normally would. One group was asked to direct their kindness towards people they were close to (i.e., friends and family), while another group was kind towards people they were less close to (i.e., acquaintances and people they didn’t know as well).
Other participants were asked to make an effort to practice self-kindness—for example, by meditating, going on a walk, or dancing to a favorite song. A fourth group didn’t engage in kind acts themselves, but they tried to observe acts of goodness carried out by other people—for example, when someone volunteered, bought coffee for someone else, or simply stopped to pick up litter. The researchers compared all these groups to a control group of people who went about their lives as usual.
According to a survey question administered before and after the experiment, participants who performed any of these kindness activities became happier compared to the control group. Somewhat surprisingly, the four types of kindness tasks didn’t have different effects on happiness.
The researchers had initially predicted that participants who were kind to others would become happier than participants who practiced self-kindness or merely observed kind acts. They had also predicted (as some prior research suggests) that being kind toward close friends and family would be more beneficial than being kind to strangers.
But this wasn’t the case; kindness in any form made people feel equally good. Try these yourself and see for yourself.
Have a safe and restful Spring Break!