JAMS News and Open Thread

MEETINGS YOU WON'T WANT TO MISS
Don't forget! There are two important dates coming up for prospective Jane Addams Middle School families.

TOMORROW, February 11:
5:30-6:30 p.m., in the Jane Addams library, principals Paula Montgomery (JAMS) and Debbie Nelson (JAK-8) will be available to talk to families of current Jane Addams K-8 students who will be 7th or 8th graders next year about the differences between JAMS and JAK-8.

6:30-7:30 pm, in the Jane Addams auditorium,  Information Night for prospective JAMS families. This is a chance for you to tour the school and ask questions about the JAMS program.

TWO WEEKS FROM TOMORROW, February 25: 
5:30 - 6:30 p.m. in the Jane Addams library, Special Education Executive Director McWilliams and other Special Education staff will be available to discuss Special Education Services at JAMS for 2014-2015.

6:30-7:30 p.m. in the Jane Addams auditorium, the second Information Night for prospective JAMS families, another chance to tour the school and ask questions about the JAMS program.

JAMS AFTER-SCHOOL PROGRAMS: YMCA ON BOARD
The JAMS PTSA Steering Committee has announced on its website that after-school activity programs at JAMS will be run by the YMCA!  This is great news for people who were wondering or worried about how this would be pulled off at a new school. The YMCA runs the after-school activity programs at Eckstein and HIMS.


MORE TEACHER HIRING NEWS
The JAMS Fusion Page official website has announced the hiring of four more teacher leaders: science leader, language arts leader, head counselor, and assistant principal. With the music teacher leader hire announced earlier, this makes five teacher leader positions filled. If you are interested in participating in the teacher hiring process, you can take the SEA interview training and let Principal Montgomery know that you would like to participate in an interview team.  There is a training scheduled for tomorrow, February 11.


REMINDER: LET MS. SCHAAF KNOW ABOUT YOUR CHILD'S MUSIC TALENTS AND NEEDS!
As reported earlier, the JAMS PTSA Steering Committee is helping the new music teacher leader, Debra Schaaf, gather information ahead of time about the music program needs of kids who may be coming to JAMS. Please visit the JAMS PTSA Steering Committee's website to fill out the online information form.


OPEN THREAD
Feel free to discuss any and all of these things in the comments to this post, or anything else (on-topic) that's on your mind!

Music Teacher Leader Announced; Interview Training

JAMS has hired its first teacher!  From the JAMS Fusion page:

JAMS Music Leader Announced

We are incredibly pleased to announce that Debra Schaaf has accepted the position as the Music Leader for Jane Addams Middle School.

Debra has built the instrumental music programs at both Orca k-8 as well as Aki Middle School. She has developed significant arts partnerships for students throughout the district and also serves as lead teacher through our Career ladder teacher program. With nearly 20 years of music expereince, Debra has the right skill set to lead the development of the Jane Addams Middle School music program. She will be a great addition to the great cadre of music educators in North Seattle. Please join us in welcoming her as the first Jane Addams Middle School teacher!

 You can watch a performance by the Orca Jazz Band here!

Hiring of teacher leaders is going on right now, and hiring of other teachers will be continuing into the spring.  Anyone who would like to participate on an interview team must complete the Seattle Education Association training and then notify Paula Montgomery of their interest.  Students can participate in the training and be on an interview team, too!

There is an interview training being held TODAY at the Jane Addams building from 4-5 p.m.  Contact Paula Montgomery at p l mont gom ery at seattle schools dot org [remove spaces, replace words with symbols] to see whether there is space if you are interested in joining in today. 

The next training being held at the John Stanford Center is on February 11, 2014.  Email Regina Redmond at: SEA at washington ea dot org [remove spaces, replace words with symbols] to register (pre-registration is required).

Official JAMS website and new opportunities to get involved!

There is now an official JAMS website where Principal Montgomery can directly upload materials and information for the JAMS community! You can "join" the Fusion Page to be alerted when new materials are posted.  You do this by logging in with your Source login.  You do not have to join in order to read the page.  Here is the link:

http://jams.www.seattleschools.org/

In addition to the PTA/PTSA Steering Committee opportunity we posted about last Friday, there are two other new ways to get involved.

Apply to join the Parent Core Team

From the new JAMS Fusion website:

Parents, please consider being a leader in your community and be part of the JAMS parent planning team. The core team seeks 1-2 parent representatives from each of our elementary schools as well as Eckstein and Hamilton. This is an exciting time to help create an incredible new school. See the attachment for the application and send or email back to Principal Montgomery.

Principal Montgomery's email address is: p l mont gom ery at seattle schools dot org [remove spaces, replace words with symbols]

 

Join a Teacher Interview Team -- incoming students can do this too!

Principal Paula Montgomery has already posted six Lead Teacher positions in the district's internal hiring process. Interviews are coming up, and both parents and students can be involved. The same kind of interview teams will be formed throughout the spring as general hiring progresses. Broad representation from the different JAMS feeder schools is highly desirable. 

Here are the steps to get involved:

1. Complete the SEA Site-Based Interview Training.
You must have completed the SEA Site-Based Interview Training prior to being put on an interview team. Interested students must also attend the training in order to participate. Here is the schedule and contact info for registering for upcoming trainings; the next one is on January 9. They are held at the John Stanford Center in SoDo.

Ms. Montgomery is also working with HR to have a training take place at JAMS so that parents and students don't have to travel as far.

2.  After completing training, tell Ms. Montgomery about your interest.
Ms. Montgomery wants to bring in as many parent communities as possible. However, a caveat: an interview team must be of a manageable size, so any given team will likely include only one representative from each constituency.  You can reach her at: p l mont gomery at seattle schools dot org. [Remove spaces, replace words with symbols.]

There are two interviews coming up soon, for which Ms. Montgomery is reaching out to PTA organizations to put together interview teams. 
1. Head Counselor: Tuesday, December 17, 3:45-6:00, Jane Addams Middle School
2. Arts Team Leader: Wednesday, December 18, 3:45-6:00, Jane Addams Middle School

JAMS Meetings Coming Up -- Please Come!

From Paula Montgomery, the JAMS Planning Principal:
_________________________
While it is early in the process (we have not hired team leaders), I know that parents have many, many questions, want to meet me, and want to start to give input.

The agenda is the same for both meetings. And we will have monthly meetings after the school year, including a day time option.

Jane Addams Middle School Community Meeting
Jane Addams Middle School Library
(Same agenda both dates)

Wednesday, December 11 6:30-8:00
Wednesday, December 18 6:30-8:00
Agenda:
Overview of timeline , teacher hiring, and spring processes
Review of facility work
Q & A
Opportunity for parents and community to give first input into the educational design
Brief school tour
_______________________

EDITED TO ADD:  Paula Montgomery, asked about bringing kids to the December meetings, responded: "I think that it's fine to bring current middle school students to the December meetings; however, I am thinking that the bulk of the time at the meeting will be to answer questions about programming."  She added that there are plans to involve current 6th and 7th graders in the planning -- please see the next post.

Also, in response to questions about touring the JA building, she reminded us: "We will absolutely provide tours of the school, but they will need to be during the evening when school is not in session. And yes, no one should enter a school without permission from the current principal."

Information from Paula Montgomery on JAMS Programming

Thank you all for your comments and questions on the last post. We asked Paula Montgomery, the JAMS Planning Principal, for information on planned meetings with families. We also sent her the link to the last post so she could see what some families are thinking about.

Ms. Montgomery is working on a master calendar of currently scheduled meetings with families and will get it to us at the beginning of next week to post. We know from a meeting she had with a group of Sacajawea families last week that she is planning multiple appearances at PTA meetings and with kids at Eckstein and Hamilton who will be geo-split away to JAMS to get their perspectives. Definitely watch for that master calendar and take advantage of the chance to get to know her and ask her questions.

Here are Ms. Montgomery's "quick big answers" to questions posed on the blog. 

-----------------

1. Yes, JAMS will have Algebra 2 next year. It looks as if we may have enough qualified students for two sections.

2. Geometry and Algebra 1, no problem. Plenty of sections.

3. Yes, for band and orchestra program. Just added a second music room to the plans for Phase 2 (summer 2014). The number of sections/levels will be driven by student needs. Both Hamilton and Eckstein band directors are involved in planning.

4. Working on initial instrument and library inventory with district.

5. Yes to foreign languages, starting for 6th graders. At this point, I can say absolutely Spanish and Japanese due in large part to preparing students for high school. I will need to see the number of current 6th graders in French before making a decision.

6. Spent day at Garfield, learning what needs to happen in APP at the middle level for students to be successful in 9th grade. Plan to visit Ingraham as well.

7. Yes to biology. Hoping to pull off science electives as well. Our school site is an amazing resource for environmental sciences. In conversation with science leaders in the district to develop possibilities.

8. Teacher leader positions are now posted! An all Seattle district email should be sent out next week, alerting teachers about the opportunity. Hope to have interviews in late December. May have to interview in early January given how busy December is . These leaders should be on board by mid-January.

9. Other programming decisions are waiting for 1) student data review, 2) teacher leader input, 3) student input, and 4) parent input.

And now I have a BIG ask. If anyone out there is able/willing to do pro-bono work on logo design. I would love to connect. Our BEX levy is really covering academic spaces and curriculum and this is an area that has not been addressed. Would love to use the expertise of a professional to start designing logo/mascot possibilities and have our future JAMS students select the mascot/colors/etc prior to February. The architect for the project then can include these elements into finishes for our school.
---------------------

If you're interested in providing some design help, Ms. Montgomery can be reached at p l mont gomery at seattle schools dot org. [remove all spaces, replace words with symbols.]

Also, information that Ms. Montgomery passed on from Tracy Libros in response to the questions raised by maps of the JAMS, Eckstein and Hamilton attendance areas: they are working on "enlarged (and therefore more detailed) maps of the middle school attendance areas for JAMS, Eckstein, and Hamilton."  Dr. Libros provides this info for families: "For specific information on where your child will be assigned for next year (2014-15), please go to the Address Lookup Tool on the district’s web site. We are in the process of updating that information for 2014-15 to reflect changes approved by the School Board. We expect to have the updated information posted the week after the Thanksgiving break."

Now a request from us to you: please share the address of this blog with people you know. The more community involvement, the better it will be. Thanks.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving, everyone!