Jaguar News
Friday, October 2, 2020
Dear Gentry Families,
On October 6, 2020 (next Tuesday), teachers will be submitting IPR grades. IPR’s will be mailed towards the end of next week. I want to remind parents that IPR grades are not final - they are used to communicate your child’s progress so far in the quarter. Your child has plenty of time to bring up grades before the end of the quarter - this is not the time to panic. If your child’s grades are not where you would like them to be, I recommend sitting down with your child and creating a plan to improve their learning.
This week, I want to address a problem that many of our teachers are seeing. Teachers have mentioned that student attendance and engagement has been extremely strong. However, teachers have also noticed that when they release students to work, they aren’t turning in assignments. After hearing this, I reflected on my own child and thought, he attends every class and follows along, but honestly I wouldn’t know if he turned in work unless I REALLY checked. So I want to discuss the issue of, how do you know if your child is really doing the work? I’ve bulleted suggestions and ideas to help you moving forward:
If your child uses the excuse that their teacher is not giving clear instructions on how to turn in assignments, I would argue this is probably not true. My administrative team has observed every teacher, and one thing that stood out was the constant reminders to students of what assignments were due and how to turn the assignments in. In one class, I observed the teacher show students how to turn in a particular assignment 3 times in a 15 minute span. Teachers consistently ask students if they have questions or arrange times to meet with them.
Home Access is where you can get the best information on your child’s grade information, schedule and attendance. Here is a video that will walk you through how to use Home Access
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGp8DjMiSiQ&feature=youtu.be
Schoology - Each class has folders for each day that outlines what assignments are due. The calendar for each class will notify students what assignments they should be working on and when they are due. Your child will have to open Schoology for you.
Advisory/EEE/Skills for Success - Your child can use advisory/EEE/Skills for Success for help in accessing grades and creating a game plan.
Daily Conversations with your child on what they’re doing in each class. Questions should be specific and not general. For example, rather than asking what did you do in class today, ask your child to show what assignments they completed for class.
Evaluate the environment and process your child goes through when given work time. Do they do the assignment, or are they distracted with cell phones, television, or messaging their friends?
Wednesdays - We encourage students to meet with their teachers on Wednesday during office hours if they need help on assignments.
If all else fails, I would contact your child’s teacher and ask how they’re doing. I would also encourage your child to contact their teacher if they’re confused or need extra help.
Our teachers realize the challenges your child is facing learning virtually. They’re giving a lot of grace to your child and are being very flexible when it comes to completing work. I would also request that you give our teachers grace as well. Here are a couple of things I want to address when it comes to teacher grading and communication:
When your child turns in an assignment please give the teacher 2-3 days to grade work. We have many students completing work, often late, and then demanding a teacher to grade it immediately.
When communicating with teachers, please allow 24 hours for a teacher to respond.
Teachers are presenting lessons and simultaneously responding to constant student questions through messaging and email, so they may not get to your child’s question within the class period. If your child needs help, have them schedule a time with their teacher.
Elective teachers have more classes and more students and need more time to grade classwork.
Have a great weekend and if you have any questions please let me know.
How to Locate Grades on Home Access
Please click here to view a quick video that will give you and your student instructions on how to find grading, schedules and attendance information. This will also be posted on the Media Center page located on the Gentry Middle School homepage.
Conduct and Effort Ratings
7th/8th Grade Girls and Boys Basketball Tryouts
Girls and boys basketball tryouts will begin in mid to late October. Be sure that your child has turned in all of their MSHSAA paperwork to the main office PRIOR to tryouts. This paperwork can be found on our website located under the Extracurricular Tab on our homepage. Coaches will not be permitted to allow any student to begin the tryout process until all of this paperwork has been completed and is on file in the main office. Feel free to call the main office at 214-3240 to verify if your student's paperwork is on file in our main office. If you have any questions regarding any of our upcoming Winter athletic teams, please feel free to reach out to a member of our coaching staff:
7th Girls Basketball Coach: Tara Frearson tfrearson@cpsk12.org
7th Boys Basketball Coach: Angie Roberds aroberds@cpsk12.org
8th Girls Basketball Coach: Brian Clayton bclayton@cpsk12.org
8th Boys Basketball Coach: Ken Welty kewelty@cpsk12.org
7th/8th Cheer Coaches: Bri Noltie Bnoltie@cpsk12.org
Chrissy McCormick cmccormick@cpsk12.org
CPS Spirit Week
Tips for Resolving Connection Issues with Student iPads
Basketball Cheerleading
If your student is interested in participating in basketball cheerleading this year, please fill out this form: Basketball Cheerleading Interest Form to receive more information. For the winter season cheerleaders support all four basketball teams (7th girls and boys, 8th girls and boys) by cheering on the sidelines and performing at half time. 7th and 8th grade girls and boys are encouraged to try out! If you have any questions please contact Coach Noltie bnoltie@cpsk12.org or Coach McCormick cmccormick@cpsk12.org.
Attention Parents of 8th Grade Students
Please have your student head to this link: 8th Grade Weekly Homework Document each week to review the homework that has been assigned by their teachers. Teachers will email parents and students once a week as well to elaborate and communicate any necessary information. Please have your student reach out to their teachers if they have any questions or concerns. Go Jaguars!
PTSA Update
Hi there GMS Families! This school year may not have started out the way we had all planned, but PTSA continues to support and serve our school community and we want you to be involved! If you have not joined PTSA yet, it never too late. In fact, our executive board has a great opportunity for you to join now AND show your support of our amazing school community at the same time.
When you complete the membership form we ask for a $25 fee. That fee pays for your membership dues, (a portion of this collected fee is also sent to the MO State PTA/PTSA), as well as a yard sign that will be placed in your yard showing your support for GMS school, staff and students. We feel it is important to show our appreciation for our teachers, staff and students during these difficult times. Gentry is an awesome school community with the BEST teachers/staff in the district and we are asking you for your assistance in helping show support.
Our executive board is made up of four (4) officers. Due to the pandemic, we were unable to transition this board to new officers in the spring. If you are interested in being more involved or taking on a more active role in PTSA, please reach out to any of our current officers:
Eric Gilbert - President, ericgcomo@gmail.com
Mandy Llewellyn - Vice President, llewcrew5@gmail.com
Bree McMurray - Secretary, mobatgirl1@yahoo.com
Haley Schwarz - Treasurer, schwarz.haley@gmail.com
We now have an online store open to purchase Gentry sportswear. This store will remain open until the end of the day on Friday, October 16th. All orders can be placed and paid for through the online site and we will collect all orders and have them available for families to pick up by the end of the month. An email will be sent to families once we have further details regarding our pick up process. Our plan is to have a tent set up in the parking lot at GMS one evening. This is our only planned opportunity to offer sportswear this school year and also our only opportunity to have a fundraiser, so be sure to check out our fun designs and get yours before it’s too late.
Even though we aren’t all together in person, our PTSA is continuing to support our school in many ways:
- we have purchased several outdoor tents for our students. These will allow for teachers/students to have more outdoor teaching/learning environments.
- we are offering additional nutrition bags to families that need them during these uncertain times.
- we are continuing with our efforts to show appreciation to our school staff through small tokens and periodic lunches/snacks.
- we continue to offer (3) teacher grants per semester to enhance our students’ learning environments.
We need your help! PLEASE consider joining Gentry PTSA. We would love to have you join us to discuss ideas. Our hope is that we can continue to better our students learning environment TOGETHER! We invite you to join our next meeting on Wednesday, October 21st at 6pm. The link for that zoom meeting will be included as we get closer to our meeting date. We hope you are able to make it! As always, THANK YOU for your continued support of OUR Gentry School Community!
Boone County Mental Health Coalition Checklist
The Boone County Mental Health Coalition Checklist dates have been postponed and students will not be taking this survey next week. As soon as we have more information on the new checklist dates, we will share that information with families.
Media Center Minute
iBoss Filter
Attention: 6th and 7th Graders:
On Monday, Oct.5th, your iPad will be receiving the iBoss filter. You will see a new app on your device that says "iBoss" and a new notification in the upper corner of your iPad that says "VPN".
If you remove the iBoss app or turn off the VPN, your iPad WILL NOT WORK.
Here is Troubleshooting information if you are having trouble after the iBoss app installs.
In order to prepare for the filter, you should be sure that your iOS is updated to 13.7.
8th Graders should have received the iBoss filter on Wednesday, Sept. 30th.
Notability Issues
Notability issues continue with documents losing text boxes and work appearing to be blank. Apparently the work is there, but the text box is just so small you can't see it. Click in the area where you think the text box is and press space or return to make it appear.
The work around is to tap on the 'T', but not insert a text box. Just type on the spot where you want the text. Notabiity is working to resolve this issue.
Rock Bridge Elementary 5th Graders (Now Gentry 6th Graders)
We have discovered that when your keyboard cases were put together, many of them were missing a vital part to make it charge. If your iPad is having difficulty charging, or feels loose in the case, please contact the Gentry Media Center so we can arrange a time to check your iPad case and see if it needs an additional part. You may stop by Gentry any day from 7:30 am – 3:00 pm.
- Option 1 - Curbside Pickup - Monday - Thursday from 7:30am - 3:30 pm, Friday from 7:30am - 12:00 noon.
- Option 2 - Curbside Dropoff - Monday - Thursday from 7:30 am - 3:30 pm, Friday 7:30 - 3:00pm. Search your entire house for those books you've been keeping safe since March and return them at our curbside dropoff. We accept books from any CPS school.
- Option 3 - CPS Delivery - Deliveries of library books and other materials can be made on an as-needed basis. If you can't get by to get your books, we will bring them to you. This might take a little longer than curbside pickup.
Students should check in Schoology for a video tutorial on how to use Destiny Discover to search and put books on hold if they do not know how.
A Friendly "Mask" Reminder
Student Influenza Vaccination Day- Reminder
GMS will be hosting a free Influenza Vaccination morning on Friday, October 23 from 9:00 am-11:00 am in the GMS cafetorium. This will be available for all CPS students whether they were classified as a "virtual" learner early on or if they became an "on-line" learner when CPS transitioned to this overall model. As always, the Influenza Consent Form was included in our Back to School series of acknowledgement forms that parents had the option to submit virtually prior to the start of school. If you did not already complete this form during this back to school process and would now like to take advantage of this service for your student, please complete the form below and email it to our Gentry school nurse, Jennifer Ferguson at jferguson@cpsk12.org no later than October 22. She also can be reached at 214-3240 to answer any questions that you may have. Don't hesitate to contact the main office if you have forgotten whether or not you actually completed this form for your student. Our nurse would be happy to look this up for you. More information regarding traffic flow and COVID safety rules will follow as we get closer to this date.
Math Counts!
If your 6th through 8th grade student is interested in joining the Gentry Math Counts team, please have them email their name and current grade to Frank Barhorst at fbarhorst@cpsk12.org by October 21. All meetings will be held via Zoom. The Zoom link for each meeting will be provided to students after they email Mr. Barhorst. Our first meeting will be October 21 from 2:45-3:45. Hope to see them there!
Gentry's Geography Club
Science Olympiad- It's Not Too Late To Join
Is your student someone who is interested in science and engineering? Are they self-motivated, self-directed and like a little competition? Then Science Olympiad could be for them and it’s NOT too late to join! All interested 6th, 7th and 8th grade students are invited to find out more about Sci Oly by following this link: https://tinyurl.com/GentrySciOly. Make sure they fill out the Google Form linked in the presentation to let Mr. Bruns know of their interest. Our next meeting will be Monday, September 28th from 2:45 to 3:45 p.m. Please email rbruns@cpsk12.org with any questions you may have.
Future Dates to Remember
October 8- IPR Grades Available on Schoology
October 16- Conclusion of Fall Sports
October 16- Final Day for Online Store Orders
October 21- PTSA Meeting via Zoom @ 6:00 pmOctober 23- Student Influenza "Flu" Vaccination Day from 9:00 am-11:00 am @ Gentry
November 3-4- School Not in Session Due to Teacher Collaboration Days
November 6- Live "Virtual" Fall Play @ 7:00 pm
November 7- Live "Virtual" Fall Play Matinee @ 3:00 pm
November 13- School Not in Session Due to Teacher Collaboration Day
November 25-27- School Not in Session Due to Thanksgiving Break
Josh Johnson, Principal
Email: Josjohnson@cpsk12.org
Website: https://www.cpsk12.org/Domain/17
Location: 4200 Bethel Street, Columbia, MO, USA
Phone: (573) 214-3240