JAMS music booster club (FOJAM) seeks volunteers for its Board of Directors

More good news for music-loving JAMS families: Zari Magness, the president of Hamilton's very active and effective music booster club, has announced the formation of a similar club for JAMS!  Zari is looking for volunteers for the FOJAM (Friends of Jane Addams Music) Board of Directors. Please see Zari's message below. If you would like to get involved, you should be able to get a message to Zari through principal Paula Montgomery at p l mont gom ery at seattle schools dot org or the incoming JAMS Music Teacher Leader, Debra Schaaf: d e schaaf at seattle schools dot org [remove spaces, replace words with symbols].  Music at JAMS is going to be fantastic!

Dear incoming JAMS families,

I am pleased to update you on the status of the new nonprofit music booster
club for Jane Addams Middle School. The purpose of the organization is to
support the music program and music directors at Jane Addams and provide
enrichment for all music students. We are happy to announce that Articles of
incorporation for Friends of Jane Addams Music (FOJAM) have been filed with
the state by one of the Hamilton parents, Faith Pettis of Pacifica Law
Group. We are grateful to Faith and her firm who agreed to do the legal work
pro bono for FOJAM. We still need to make the 501c3 filing with the IRS
which will incur some additional filing fees, but we will detail those later
on.

In the meanwhile, we need to identify 7 volunteer director positions for the
FOJAM board. Attached please find a short document (~8 pages) with the board
structure and responsibilities and let me know if any of these positions are
of interest to you. Ideally the board should be representative of all
schools feeding into JAMS. Once we have nominations for these positions, a
meeting will be called to vote on the directors as well as to vote on the
FOJAM bylaws.

If you can not commit to a board position right now, there are many
volunteer positions where you can help. These non-board positions are also
listed in the boxes in the attached document as well but I can provide you
more details on what they entail. To provide a great music experience for
our students at JAMS, please consider helping out by volunteering for any of
the many jobs that will need you when school starts. If you have experience
writing grants, please contact me, so we can start brain-storming while the
FOJAM startup goes through.

Please don't hesitate to contact me if you have any questions or suggestions.

Sincerely,
Zari Magness
2013-14 President

          Friends of Music at Hamilton International Middle school. 

Your Input Sought on 6th Grade Electives!

 

JAMS Principal Paula Montgomery and the Parent Core Team are seeking input from families heading to JAMS in the next few years about 6th grade electives.  Please keep in mind that this does not impact students entering 7th and 8th grade. 

Parents! JAMS would like your opinion about 6^th grade!

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/JAMSElectives

JAMS PTSA Charter Member Meeting; Officer Nominations Sought

From the Jane Addams Middle School PTSA Steering Committee:

Mark your calendars for Wednesday, April 2nd, 7 PM in the JAMS Cafeteria for our CHARTER MEMBER meeting. Bring your checkbooks as we will be signing up members for our newly formed PTSA. At this meeting we will also be electing our Executive Board.

We are currently soliciting nominations for the following positions:

• President
• Vice President
• Secretary
• Treasurer
• Legislative Chair

If you would like to be considered, or you would like to nominate someone else, please send a brief statement to:
nominations@jamsptsa.org. Also, all positions, except for President, can be shared between two people.

More information can be found at www.jamsptsa.org.

Please consider being an integral part of our new middle school.

 

Looking forward to seeing you there,
The JAMS PTSA Steering Committee

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!

New JAMS PTSA web site puts you in touch with Music Department and PTSA!

The JAMS PTSA Steering committee has set up a web site -- www.jamsptsa.org -- to keep families informed of all events happening at the new Jane Addams Middle School.  This site has links for useful JAMS-specific information.  The Steering Committee is busily working on putting together the charter application for JAMS membership in the Washington State PTA.

Here's a great opportunity for music-loving kids to let Debra Schaaf, the Music Teacher Leader of JAMS, know about their talents and what music opportunities they'd like to have at JAMS.  Click on "JAMS Music Information Form" in the upper right corner of the main page to submit your information to help Ms. Schaaf and Principal Montgomery in their music planning.

Thanks to the JAMS PTSA Steering Committee for their ongoing work!

Open thread: what topics would YOU like to see as posts?

What do you want to talk about? Do you want to write a guest post for this blog?

As always, please review our guidelines before commenting.

Guest Post: Please advocate TODAY for aligning JAMS and Hale bell times!

IMPORTANT!  Please advocate TODAY for the alignment of the JAMS and Nathan Hale bell times!

Background:  The Transportation Service Standards, up for School Board approval, have JAMS in bussing tier 1 (7:35 arrival time), and Nathan Hale HS in bussing tier 2 (8:25 arrival time).  Principals Montgomery (JAMS) and Hudson (Nathan Hale) endorse an alignment of the bell times for JAMS and Hale, with JAMS’ bell time 15 minutes prior to that of Hale.  There are a myriad of reasons why this would be beneficial to both schools.  For example:

1.      High school students would be able to walk their middle school-aged siblings to school.

2.      8^th grade JAMS students could more easily “Walk to Hale” for advanced classes (i.e. Math, Science, Music, and World Language).

3.      It would allow for easier coordination of shared instructors between the campuses.

4.      Crossing guards/security presence can be maximized during similar times.

5.      Hale students can smoothly tutor/assistant/coach teach at JAMS.

6.      Coordinated bell times would be attractive to prospective families, and will help make JAMS a success story from the start.  This is important, since JAMS is the first new comprehensive secondary school to be opened by SPS in perhaps 50 years, and the first of four new secondary schools to be opened by SPS in the next 5 years.

With intentionally-staggered bell times and the sharing of resources between the two schools, JAMS implementation costs should be reduced, while educational equity is improved.  This is not a novel strategy.  The E-STEM K-8 program currently in the Jane Addams building has “Walk to Hale for Math,” and Nathan Hale students mentor afterschool programming for the K-8, such as Robotics. 

The pushback to aligning the bell times appears to be costs, though in looking at the Big Picture, it would seem as though any additional transportation costs would be outweighed the cost and educational benefits of coordination between JAMS and Nathan Hale. 

Bottom line:  Education, not transportation, should drive the bell times, and, the educators responsible have an intentional strategy to meet the needs of students that is best served by the 15 minute – staggered bell time approach.   

At last week’s School Board meeting, the Superintendent requested that action on the Transportation Service Standards be delayed until the February 5^th School Board meeting.  The School Board directors approved of this delay.  The delay allows SPS Staff time to do more analysis.  The JAMS/Hale bell time alignment should be part of this analysis.  An updated Transportation Service Standards document should be included in the Friday Post of the School Board meeting agenda.  That leaves only a few days for prospective JAMS families to advocate for the alignment of JAMS and Hale bell times.

If you haven’t done so already, please send an email requesting that the transportation schedule for JAMS be shifted later, so that it would allow for the JAMS bell time to be 15 minutes prior to Nathan Hale’s established bell time.

The alignment of bell times is a critical first step toward establishing a long-term, mutually-beneficial educational partnership between the two school communities; one which will better serve our children, one which will help get JAMS off to a strong start – right out of the gate, and one which will reap benefits for many years to come.

Thank you!

Kim McCormick

Parent, John Rogers Elementary

Email addresses for advocacy letters (please send emails to all the addresses listed below, with the subject line of “JAMS Bell Times – Please align with Nathan Hale’s”
 

Superintendent Banda: superintendent@seattleschools.org

SPS Assistant Superintendent of Operations (Pegi McEvoy):  pmcevoy@seattleschools.org

SPS Transportation Dept:  transdept@seattleschools.org

SPS Arrival/Departure Time Feedback: arrivaltimes@seattleschools.org

Seattle School Board:  sharon.peaslee@seattleschools.org, sherry.carr@seattleschools.org, betty.patu@seattleschools.org, martha.mclaren@seattleschools.org, harium.martin-morris@seattleschools.org, sue.peters@seattleschools.org, stephan.blanford@seattleschools.org

__________________________________________________________

JAMS Plans is happy to publish guest posts from the community (either signed or anonymous) that conform to the blog's guidelines. If you would like to write a guest post, please email us at janeaddamsmsblog@gmail.com.

 

Open thread for community conversation

Let's talk! Please review and abide by the blog's commenting guidelines.

STUDENT VOTE! Help choose the new JAMS mascot!

JAMS Principal Paula Montgomery just released a survey asking future JAMS students to vote on the new school mascot!

Here is the link: JAMS Mascot Survey link, Students Only

How exciting! Please help spread the word so that as many future students as possible can vote!

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).