School hours are 7:50 am to 2:45 pm. Our front doors open to all students at 7:15 a.m. Students who walk or who are car riders use our front drive and doors. Bus riders will enter through the south gym parking doors.

We would like to welcome all students and parents to a new year at Jardine Middle School. Mr. Falk is the counselor for the 6th and 8th grade (last name A-M). Ms. Waldy is the counselor for the 7th grade and 8th Grade (last name N-Z). Jardine Guidance Counselors provide services for students pertaining to academics, career planning, and personal/social needs.

As parents, guardians, and students eagerly return to school, there can be anxiety about everything from meeting academic targets to students’ health. Considering the unpredictability of our world right now and the unprecedented events of last school year, these concerns are valid and to be expected. So, how can you help your child settle into the routine of the 2022-23 school year?

First, parents and guardians should not be afraid to have conversations addressing their child’s feelings about returning to school, especially if the student engaged in remote learning for much of the last school year. When children perceive an open, honest environment, they are more likely to feel safe expressing concerns to their family. These conversations can include safe practices at school such as masking, social distancing, and hand washing. They can also include ways for the child to seek help, both academically and with social emotional matters. Here, at Jardine Middle School, we have a “Request to See Form” on our website under the “Student Resources” tab. Students can request to see the nurse, social worker, counselors, etc. with ease.

Within these open conversations, parents and guardians can remind their children that everyone was in the same boat last year. We are all starting off feeling, perhaps, a bit wary and uncertain, but academic and social challenges can provide opportunities for growth.

Parents and guardians are encouraged to re-establish routines that may have been difficult to maintain last school year. These can include regular bedtime routines, including “no-screen time”. The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry recommends removing screens 30-60 minutes before bedtime to help children avoid sleep disruptions. Back-to-school routines may be helpful in returning to everything from regular family meal times to social interactions that may have been halted last year. These routines give parents, guardians, and students a sense of normalcy and predictability.

Remember, our staff love and care about your children, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us if there is any way we can aid in the success of your child, here at Jardine Middle School.

Jardine Safe School Policy Statements

• All students and staff have the right to be safe at school.

• Behaviors that compromise student safety will not be tolerated.

• All known safety issues are to be reported to a counselor, administrator, school resource officer, or trusted Jardine staff member.

• Parents are encouraged to report any safety concerns to school officials.

Jardine students and staff:

• Will not spread rumors, bully others, use physical violence, racial or sexual harassment.

• When safe, will help others who are victims of these behaviors.

• Will include students who feel left out

• Will tell an adult at home and school when we know a student is a victim of these action or any unsafe behavior.

Our After School Program for the 2022 - 2023 school year will begin the week of September 5th. Most programs (clubs/tutoring) will run on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursdays from 3 pm until 4 or 4:30 pm depending on the program. Students will come to the lunchroom after 2:45 for a quick snack and then start their activities. All students were emailed a link to a google form to fill out if interested in participating. 1st quarter programs: general tutoring, social skills, cooking club, LGBTQ+ club (1 day per week), Creative Writing Club. More clubs will be added as the year progresses. If students are involved in athletics, that is their priority and they can participate later in the year.

There is NO transportation home from clubs so students MUST be picked up no later than 4:45 pm. Students will follow all school behavior expectations, etc. or will be sent home. If you have any questions, please reach out to Mr. Haag, Assistant Principal, at thaag@tps501.org

Welcome back Jaguars!!

The year seems to be in full swing at Jardine Middle School. Academics, testing, volleyball, football, track, stuco, and much much more are activities providing fun filled, tiring days for our students and staff. So many times it can be difficult to manage all the chaos for students and families. Jardine is proud to provide many adults who support and come alongside our students daily to help ensure success.

Times of Covid have left their mark on everyone and not all are easily getting back into the swing of things. Prolonged isolation makes the prospect of once again participating in school activities very difficult. Jardine Middle School has a staff of counselors and a social worker on site daily to meet with students and to help make their days more enjoyable. If you find your student is struggling to meet the demands of middle school give us a call. Our support student will meet with your student and create a plan for success.

Ronda Sparks, LMSW 785-235-7189

School Social Worker

• Students visit the library during their Language Arts class on a two rotation. Each time they come to the library they will have the opportunity to check out books.

• The first few weeks of library will be introductory: where are books located, how to use the card catalog, and using Library classroom

• If your student is having chromebook issues, please tell them to visit the library to talk to Ms. Gilliland

• Each student at Jardine is allowed to check out up to 3 library books at a time. The students are allowed to checkout anytime they have permission from their teachers.

**The following is information for your student to log into their chromebook-

Student usernames follow the format of flastname###, where f is the student's first letter of their first name, lastname is the student's last name, and ### is the last three digits of the Student ID number. Their email address is that username followed by @tps501.org.

Student passwords follow the format of ######fl, where ###### is the student number, f is the initial of their first name, and l is the initial of their last name, both lowercase. Student numbers can be found in the Parent Portal under Student Details in the left side menu.

**The following is your student's TylerSIS login information-

Login is their student ID number and the password is their birth date with two digit month, two digit day, and two digit year

Mike Singletary of the Chicago Bears once said, “Do you know what my favorite part about the game is? The opportunity to play.” We at Jardine Middle School want you to know that every student has an opportunity to participate in after school activities.

To begin the school year our fall activities are: Volleyball, coached by Mrs. Gilliland, Mr. Falk, Ms. Scott and Mrs. Lathem. Girls Tennis, coached by Mrs. Abellon and Mr. Morris. Football, coached by Mr. Daniels, Mr. Brown, Mr Fairfield and Mr. Campbell. All students participating must have a physical on file and have maintained grades set by KSHSAA and USD 501 regulations.

We will check grades each week prior to an event; if a student-athlete has an F in any class they will have an opportunity to get the grade to passing before they will be allowed to compete during the week. Our coaches and I will go over concussion protocols with our student-athletes. Jardine will have a certified trainer for our athletes; parents will need to sign a release form in order to be seen.

I want to remind all spectators about KSHSAA rule 52 on sportsmanship. We want everyone to be courteous to all participants, coaches, and officials. Jardine will win with character and lose with dignity, let us be positive role models for our student-athletes.

This year our drama department is presenting the play “Shake with the Zombie,” directed by Mrs. Rowe and Mrs. Shelton. We encourage all students from 6th, 7th and 8th grade to participate. Play try-outs begin Sept. 19th and performance will be in November.

Welcome back to school! There is a lot going on at the beginning of the school year. Parents, please remember to ask your child what they are learning in all of their classes. Also, they must come with a charged Chromebook so that they can be successful in class.

6th Grade Ancient World History: Hello and welcome from the 6th grade History team of Mr. Barrett and Mr. Jennings. We will be starting out this year with the study of social scientists and how they are like detectives; using clues to solve mysteries. We will begin with prehistory and move into the agricultural revolution of how early people made the shift from hunter gatherers to farming. That will then be followed by the earliest civilizations of the Sumerians and later Mesopotamian kingdoms.

7th Grade World Geography: Students are learning all about maps, and coordinates. They are drawing conclusions about how people choose where to live, and the adaptations they make to do so. Students will be able to create a map, read a map, and analyze information presented on different types of maps. In a world where we use GPS for so many things, it is important to understand absolute location and why GPS works. Students are also learning their States and Capitals. Please help them review at home.

We start out the year talking about Earth’s history in 8th grade. We will learn about fossils and use them to help not only discover how organisms have changed over time, but also to find out how these are put into a geologic timeline. Using what we learn about how life has changed throughout history, it will lead us to questions about how they happened which we will investigate later.

8th Grade U.S. History: Students are learning about the causes of the American Revolution and the American Revolutionary War. In a few weeks, they will be creating their first project to show what they learned. Our next unit will be the Constitution of the United States.

6th Grade Math: In 6th grade math we just finished learning how to divide all types of fractions. Now we will be learning about adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing decimals. Then proceed to determine the least common multiple and greatest common factor. Finally, we will wrap up the month by assessing this first unit of material.

7th Grade Math: The 7th grade math team has started the year working with ratios and proportional relationships. In Module 1, students will build upon their 6th grade reasoning about ratios, rates, and unit rates to define proportional relationships and the constant of proportionality. Students will learn that the unit rate of a collection of equivalent ratios is called the constant of proportionality and can be used to represent proportional relationships with equations of the form y = kx, where k is the constant of proportionality. The math team is grateful that we have programs like IXL and Khan Academy to help our students achieve success when learning new mathematical concepts. These programs allow our students to work on their assignments anywhere they have internet access. Any encouragement for your student to practice at home would be greatly appreciated. We are looking forward to a great year with this 7th grade class.

8th Grade Math: Welcome to a new school year at Jardine Middle School. In Math, your student has already jumped into the math curriculum with the study of equations and inequalities. We begin by making the connection between proportional relationships, from 7th grade, and linear expressions and equations, then move into inequalities. First they will transcribe information from word problems into expressions and equations and then evaluate or solve. Students will also be experiencing equations, many for the first time, that may have no solution or many solutions. We will then connect this to inequalities that typically have many solutions.

Ask your student about working at our vertical white boards and random grouping. We are working on “Building Thinking Classrooms”, as our goal is to develop students who can think and become lifelong learners.

8th Grade Algebra: Greetings 8th Grade Algebra parents. This year of math may quite possibly be the most challenging year many students have ever had, as they will be completing two years of math in one. We will be covering 8th Grade Standards as well as 9th Grade Algebra Standards. While there will be lots of concepts that will overlap with the 8th grade math groups, the Algebra students will be extending those concepts. For example, we will not only look at linear equations, but absolute value equations as well. Their study of inequalities will include compound inequalities and they will be completing graphs for their inequalities. While solving equations, they will be discovering that not all equations have one solution- sometimes an equation has no solution and sometimes it has many solutions.

Ask your student about working at our vertical white boards and random grouping. We are working on “Building Thinking Classrooms”, as our goal is to develop students who can think and become lifelong learners.

HMH Science Dimensions™ is our new online program this year for science. This will be our resource for readings, various assignments, and labs. Just because we are moving towards being more digital does not mean the hands-on stuff is gone. Part of science will always be about learning through experiences.

6th Grade: Students are currently working on Module A: Engineering and Science. They will be exploring how engineers solve problems through connecting engineering, science, and society. They develop an understanding of the system and system models that we are used to describe natural and engineered designs. They will explore the engineering design process and focus on how to develop criteria and constraints for that problem so as to ensure a successful solution.

7th Grade: The 7th graders are off to a great start! We are learning Scientific Method and lab equipment we will be using during our investigations and experiments this year. In our first quarter this year we will be learning all about the different types of Energies through labs and investigations. This will be our Physics section this quarter.

8th Grade: We start out the year talking about Earth’s history in 8th grade. We will learn about fossils and use them to help not only discover how organisms have changed over time, but also to find out how these are put into a geologic timeline. Using what we learn about how life has changed throughout history, it will lead us to questions about how they happened which we will investigate later.

It has been a fun start of the year in our studio space at Jardine Middle School. Our young Jardine artist started this year in the art room by working on pandemic monsters. On our very first day of school, 7th grade students completed a collaborative project by painting ceramic monsters to look like drawings done by an elementary Jardine artist. Each sculpture will now be given back to the children at the elementary school. We can not wait to see the faces of our elementary students when they get their work back. It has been a three year gap between when we started this project and now. The students who will be getting their work back are now 4rth and 5th grade students. Years ago, when they were kindergarten and first graders, they were asked to draw monsters. From there my design one students then recreated the drawings into clay sculptures. Unfortunately our school year ended short in 2020, and we did not get to complete the project. I am so happy to announce that our current 7th grade class was able to complete the tiny monsters by painting them to look like the drawings. Now they are ready to go back to the elementary school and be returned to their owners.

Jardine students are already making wonderful music! 7th and 8th Grade Band students are planning to perform at the Middle School Football Classic October 12 at Hummer Sports Park.

Check out the Jardine Middle School BAND Facebook page!

Jardine Middle School will not tolerate bullying of any kind. Bullying is defined as any ongoing verbal or physical mistreatment where there is an imbalance of power, and the target/victim is exposed repeatedly to negative actions by one or more students. Bullying can be direct (physical or verbal), or indirect (exclusion, cyber-bullying, emotional). In order for everyone to feel safe and secure at school, every Topeka Public School has adopted the following rules against bullying: “I will not bully others. I will try to help students who are bullied. I will do my best to include students who are easily left out. When I know somebody is being bullied, I will tell an adult at school and an adult at home.” Students, staff, and parents should report any bullying that they are aware of to administration through the on-line safety report link on the Jardine website. There is also a "request to see" form online that students can fill out to be seen by someone during the day. Students who bully others will receive consequences. Our counselors will be visiting 6th, 7th and 8th grade classes in September to remind students what bullying is, what we can do to prevent bullying, and what students should do if they or someone else is being bullied.

The Topeka Public Schools, Unified School District No. 501 is committed to affirmative action and equal opportunity. No person shall, on the basis of age, race, color, creed, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or expression, disability, national origin or ancestry be denied lawful access to any appropriate educational service, program or activity provided by the school district. The Title VI and Title IX compliance coordinator is the Assistant Superintendent for Teaching/Learning/Administration. The Section 504/Title II compliance coordinator is the Coordinator of College and Career Ready Services. For employment, the EEO/AA officer is the General Director of Human Resources. All compliance coordinators may be contacted at 624 SW 24th Street, Topeka, KS 66611-1294, (785) 295-3000. The clerk of the Board of Education has been designated to receive and redirect or handle inquiries regarding nondiscrimination policies, regulations and procedures. The clerk may be contacted by calling (785) 295-3045 or by writing to 624 SW 24th Street, Topeka, KS 66611-1294.