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The primary goal of JSMS is to provide students with the academic skills and personal habits necessary to ensure success at the secondary level.

 

Social and emotional skills are key to building individual character and positive relationships within a greater community, and critical to the success of adolescents as learners.  It is important that:

 

Students and staff model respect, patience, and kindness.    Students and staff practice acceptance, courage, and compassion.  Staff members communicate effectively with parents to cultivate a partnership.     Students are involved in the process of developing class expectations with their teachers.   Staff members use intentional strategies to help students build the resiliency needed for healthy decision making.  Students use these strategies to accept and build individuality and the resiliency needed to overcome personal obstacles.

 

We will continue to create a learning environment that promotes self-­motivation, student engagement, and achievement. Motivation and engagement increase with and are more likely to occur when:

 

Students can articulate what they should know and be able to do in order to achieve proficiency.   Students use a well­ defined process to track their own progress toward attaining individual goals.  Students are motivated to meet learning targets and take opportunities for work revision.  Students can articulate how an assignment or activity connects to standards and learning targets. ­   Students receive frequent, relevant, formative feedback.  Learning takes place using various types of instruction, which allows for student voice and choice. ­  Instruction is based on students’ needs and interests.  Staff and students understand that mistakes are inherent to the learning process.  Staff and students focus on individual growth based on increasingly complex thinking: