JMS Staff Newsletter

I will be taking over the Parent & Staff Newsletters moving forward. Please send me items you would like included in the weekly Parent/Staff newsletter no later than Friday afternoons at 5:00pm. I will be sending out more information about the newsletters and the vision for how the tool will be used in the future.

Thanks for a great first week!

Phil Cox, Principal

Jenifer Laurendine, Vice Principal

Nick Corrigan, Dean of Students

Ben Fowler, Instructional Technology Coach

Monday-3

A Day

A- K on campus

L - Z remote learning

Volleyball practice - (Varsity only) 3-5pm (Gym)

Board of Education Meeting (SAB) 6:00

Tuesday-4

A Day

L - Z on campus

A - K remote learning

Instructional Coaches Meeting - 2:45 - 3:15pm (Eagles Nest)

Volleyball practice - (Varsity only) 3-5pm (Gym)

Wednesday-5

All Students - Remote Learning

Building Level PD - SLT 1pm & Staff Meeting - 2pm (Both via Zoom)

Faculty Food Truck - Lanai (please wear masks and social distance)

Volleyball Practice (Varsity Only) 3-5pm (Gym)

Volleyball Parent Meeting - 5pm picnic tables in front of school

Thursday-6

B Day

A – K on campus

L – Z Remote learning

Grade Level Meetings

Anderson County Election – (Gym)

PE classes in JPAC

Friday-7

B Day

L – Z on campus

A – K Remote learning

Volleyball Practice (Varsity Only) 3-5pm (Gym)

A few key points from Clint:

• Communicating Worth and Potential to every student, every day!
• You can’t have significant learning without significant connection.
• What will we do with the many "significant moments” we will have with our students this year?

It was awesome to hear Clint talk about Larry Jensen and the profound impact he had on the trajectory of his life. To see our Zoom Chat blow up with your thoughts, teachers who have impacted your life and also colleagues that have impacted you was so inspirational.

Thank you all for making that a memorable experience!

Mr. Corrigan was selected this past week as the new Dean of Students at Jefferson Middle School! Mr. Corrigan comes to us from the 5th grade hallway where he taught 5th grade Math and served as Athletic Director and PLC Coach at JMS for the past 2 years. He is a teacher at heart and loves serving others. He began teaching kids' martial arts classes when he was 15 years old. He had so much fun with his students that he decided to explore teaching as a career. He graduated from TN Tech University's 2 +2 program and started teaching 6th grade math at Norris Middle School. During his time at Norris, he taught multiple grade levels and subject areas until eventually finding my his way to Jefferson Middle School to teach 5th grade math.

He has spent 15 years serving in the Navy Reserve as a Hospital Corpsman and the Army National Guard as a Transportation Corps Officer. His wife, Kylie, and almost 3-year old son, RJ reside in Oak Ridge. Mr. Corrigan states "He (RJ) is by far the most special blessing in our lives and keeps us laughing (or pulling our hair out) every day! He loves dinosaurs, trains, cars, and climbing anything he possibly can. Counters, chairs, furniture, ... the walls... whatever he possibly can to ensure he scares his mother and I."

When Mr. Corrigan is not at school, he enjoys spending time with his family, running, fishing, or hiking. "I am so happy to be a part of the JMS Family and look forward to serving our school in this new role!" Please welcome, Mr. Corrigan to the JMS Administrative team as our new Dean of Students!

We would like to take this time to congratulate Katie Bolling, as she was recently selected as the Athletic Director at Jefferson Middle School!

Coach Bolling graduated from Maryville College in 2008, where she played basketball at Maryville College and received all conference honors during her junior and senior season. Coach Bolling brings a plethora of coaching and athletics experience to the Athletic Director position.

Coach Bolling began teaching Physical Education and coaching at Jefferson in 2008. She began her coaching career at Jefferson as an assistant girls basketball coach in 2008, before becoming head coach in 2010. Coach Bolling has been head girls basketball coach at Jefferson from 2010-2013 and 2016-present. She was an assistant softball coach at Oak Ridge High School during the 2009 and 2010 seasons. She was an assistant girls basketball coach at Oak Ridge High School from 2013-2015. She coached cheerleading at Jefferson from 2017-2020. Coach Bolling has been the JMS volleyball coach from 2013-present and has been an assistant track & field coach at Jefferson since 2019.

Coach Bolling is looking forward to her new role and is excited about the future of Jefferson Athletics. Go Eagles!

This plan sets up each grade level with a “dedicated’ time for core time as mapped out for Wednesday. Please keep in mind that you will need to be available for Office Hours on Wednesday mornings even if you are not going to touch base with your students via Zoom at the dedicated times. In grades 5 and 6, reading will look like it normally does and students would have Asynchronous and Synchronous learning opportunities with their assigned teachers. 7th and 8th grade would check into elective classes at the end of the day.

Teacher Roles/Expectations during the school day

Each teacher will have expectations for the following roles throughout the school day:

• Dedicated Synchronous Time (ex. “1st period” 8:15 am – 9:15 am – 5th Math, 6th ELA, 7th PE/Rot, 8th Social Studies) This time is offered and dedicated to the classes listed for each grade level. This can be offered in a variety of ways including but not limited to:
• Student and family contact time – dedicated time reach out to students and parents who are not participating in either your synchronous opportunities or your asynchronous opportunities via email and/or phone call with parents.
• PLC time – dedicated time allotted to each grade level to have PLC planning time. Teachers will be expected to meet twice per week during this time in order to meet in PLC in order to discuss lesson plan ideas, review student data and information from assessments to help develop plans to support student needs and growth and discuss strategies, ideas, resources etc.
• Attendance time – dedicated time to work to record student attendance based on student participation and/or completion of assignments in Canvas. At this time, all students will be counted "present" in Skyward on their remote learning days. On a weekly basis, please decipher if student was "present" by completing an assignment, participating in a discussion board, sending/replying to an email, etc. The students who are not participating will be sent to Ms. Langford and she will change in Skyward. We are still waiting to receive directive/consistency on how to record this most effectively. We would like it to be consistent with ConnectOR process. We will keep you posted after the Principal's Meeting this week. In addition, please see the ITC Corner for an easy method to take attendance via Canvas.
• Grading time - time to grade, develop and provide feedback to all students virtually.

If you are looking for a way to take attendance daily, this is a great method. As always, if you need help, let me know.

Taking Roll using Canvas Survey:

1) In your canvas course, click on “Quizzes” in the Navigation menu.

2) Click “+Quiz” in the top right corner.

3) Name your quiz (something like Daily Attendance), and add a description if you like.

4) Change “Quiz Type” to “Ungraded Survey” and check the box for “Allow Multiple Attempts.” This will allow students to use the same quiz/survey to enter attendance every day.

5) Scroll back to the top and click “Questions” to add whatever questions you like. Canvas will record students’ names and the time, so you can ask questions like “Are you working from school or from home?” or whatever questions you choose.

6) Click “Save & Publish” at the bottom.

7) Go back to your home page and click “edit.”

8) Place the cursor where you would like your link to appear (probably the top left of the page so students see it first).

9) On the right-hand side, under “Links,” click “Quizzes” then select your quiz/survey (Daily Attendance)

10) Click “Save” at the bottom right.

If you need assistance with OneNote, we have several teachers in our building that utilized it successfully last year. You can reach out to those staff members and also Mr. Fowler for more assistance.

It is important that students understand the impact a missing assignment, a ZERO, has on their grade. Over the course of the nine weeks, we find around week 3 or 4 students with zeroes begin a sharp decline. For many, seeing the "F" in a class at week 3 becomes a self fulfilling prophecy that there is no way to avoid an "F". In many cases, they do not understand the cumulative effect and impact of an F at 21% vs. an F at 65%.

In our discipline assemblies, which will be virtual and ready for students to view next week, we will focus on effort as one topic among the many we will discuss. It is important we challenge students to submit EVERY assignment and give their best effort. A key for us is that they understand by giving their best effort and submitting every assignment they are contributing to the learning process. They may not get a perfect score or even a great score, but by supplying their best effort they can show the teacher the areas that they need help.

For example, when adults don't understand how to use technology or understand how a YouTube channel can make money etc. students can explain a lot. While we often look at their technology shortfalls like not knowing Microsoft Office well, we fail to see that they are highly functioning digital natives in both 20th century ideas, tasks and economic sectors that have been disrupted and transformed by technology. To our students, the repetition of tasks which they see as soon to be automated ideas is pointless. We aren't seeing a decline each and every year in student caliber, but rather a push back from students as they see other ways of learning and developing.

The world in which our students will work, play, grow, share, and learn will automate many of the ideas, skills and resources we have seen in education as learning tools. This is not to replace teachers, standards or lessons, but rather to set an evolution in a system that was designed for a society and era that no longer exist. Our students do not live in a world that is based on industry like that of the Industrial Revolution. Our students are not familiar with many of the limitations that we knew in our childhood in terms of technology, communication and automation. It's not to say it's not important to constantly learn, but some of the skills of our childhood are now becoming automated.

No different than skills from a hundred years ago that we have allowed technology to replace in our lifetime. For example, a hundred years ago, I'm sure many would have replaced the routine of washing and drying clothes with that of a modern day washing machine and dryer. Over a hundred years ago, your advancement in many regards including opportunities, social life etc. was confined to the distance to which you could travel. For our kids, it is unfathomable to think of being confined, tethered or restricted to whom they can communicate with and places they may travel to. It's just a different world in many regards, but in many regards education has not changed.

Check out some of the articles that help highlight how we can prepare our students for their future by using the standards we are assigned to teach by modeling critical thinking. The skills for the 21st century learner and future employee is to utilize information and knowledge.

10 Tips for Teaching Kids to be Awesome Critical Thinkers

12 Solid Strategies for Teaching Critical Thinking Skills

25 Resources for teaching critical thinking