Guidelines: Please Read!

This blog was conceived in early 2013 in response to the feeling amongst a few Sacajawea and John Rogers parents that it would be nice to have a place for people to talk civilly about what the coming Jane Addams Middle School could be. 

Community builds itself through shared work.

The root of this blog was building a community for JAMS, and that is the continuing mission of this blog.  But really, community builds itself through shared work.  Our community will build itself as we work together to build a school for our kids.  This blog is just one small part of that process.

The subject matter is important: programming, culture, expectations, facilities.  But the way that the subject matter is discussed here is also important. 

The very mission of this blog is to build up the community, and comments that tear down other prospective community members harm that process.  We are coming into this after a lengthy sausage-making process that left pretty much nobody happy.  This is not the place to discuss it, because the whole point of this blog is to move forward from that.

We hope not to have to do too much "policing" of comments. We definitely have better things to do, and we are concerned about having a chilling effect on discussion.  We feel we can trust you, the future JAMS community, to do the right thing.  That's why we're not moderating comments before they're posted.

Here are the current posting guidelines, subject to amendment:

Guideline 1: Stay on topic. 
On-topic means relating directly to the subject matter of this blog and avoiding the topics that have been specifically designated as off-topic.  Here is the statement of this blog's subject matter, posted on the Home page in the right navigation bar:

This is a narrowly defined blog. It is about planning JAMS and facilitating community engagement. It is offered by parent volunteers. This is not a place to discuss school district policies, personalities, or politics. It is a place for constructive civil discourse. We reserve the right to delete off-topic or abusive comments without warning or comment.

Discussion of "school district policies, personalities, or politics" are off-topic here. Period. Have a rant about the District? This is not the place to post it, and it will be deleted.

Guideline 2: We all belong here, and all our kids belong at JAMS.
Any statement that certain groups of students have "pushed out" other groups from one school or another will cause the entire comment to be deleted. Sorry, that's just not OK here; if you must say it, say it somewhere else.  The students are kids who are entitled to assignment in a public school, and as a whole they form the student body around which this JAMS community will be focused.

Guideline 3: Don't be mean.
Please be more or less nice to each other.  At least, don't be any meaner than you would be at a school event. Count to ten if you must.  Remember, these are the people you'll be meeting at PTA meetings, working on projects with, sitting next to at sporting events.

Guideline 4:  Choose a posting name.
We deliberately chose to allow people to post anonymously here.  Feel free to do so, but please sign your post with a handle of some kind, whether initials, a nickname, or even a nonsense word.  This allows the conversation to refer back to your specific comment.  You do not have to always use the same posting name; it's not to track commenters, but comments.

Guideline 5: Discussion of the blog itself takes place by email or in the comments to this page.
Don't forget that you can always reach out to us by email at janeaddamsmsblog@gmail.com.  Concerns about the running of the site or about specific comments should be directed to email or by posting a comment to this page if you wish to remain anonymous.