February 4, 2018

Good evening-

I hope you are all having a great weekend and enjoying the game. Thanks for taking the
time over the last two weeks to complete course selection for students. The window for
teachers is now closed but please don't hesitate to ask if you have questions or need to
make a change.

Students will now make their selections through February 16. Please remind them to do
that if you get a chance and encourage them to choose electives!

We have a scheduled meeting time Thursday, February 8 at 7:10am.
All 9th grade teachers will report to AMS for 8th grade transition meetings.
Everyone else should report to AHS for ongoing NEASC work. Please use the attached
NEASC survey results as you start to write your responses for the Self-Study.

NEASC Survey results
    Faculty
    Student
    Family
NEASC Survey Results Maps to Standards
    Faculty
    Student
    Family

As a reminder the 10th & 12th grade classes will be attending a presentation by Dana
Farber on Thursday, February 8 at 11am in the auditorium. Please let us know if you
would like to attend and don't have a 10th or 12th grade class. Dana Farber has told us
the presentation is about 30 minutes and is informative and helpful. They do not feel it
is a heavy presentation that could bring up emotions with students.


Special Olympics-Hats for a Cause!
This year Ashland Public School Special Olympians will again participate in the Seventh Annual
Five Town Special Olympics Games Day held at Medway Middle School! Athletes from Millis,
Medfield, Medway, Holliston and Ashland will participate in a Soccer themed day of skill hosted
this year by Medway. This event, co-sponsored by Special Olympics of Massachusetts and the five
towns participating, is free for the student athletes and includes the opening ceremony, 8 skill
stations, the medals for each participant, and the closing ceremony associated with an Olympic
event.  Two  years ago for those who were here, we had a memorable day of parades, celebrities
(including some Patriot Football Players and Cheerleaders) and good sportsmanship as student
athletes supported by student volunteers showed off their catching, throwing, kicking and catching
skills.

Special Olympics rely on the volunteers and donations to offer these and other athletic events for
students with disabilities. We will be asking for student volunteers to help run this amazing event,
and we are also asking for donations to support the cost of running it.  On February  9th we invite
all students and staff to donate $1.00 and in return wear the hat of your choice to school.  Wearing
a hat will signal your support of Special Olympics and specifically our own student athletes who will be
participating.  All money will be given directly to Special Olympics.

Ashland Raises Healthy & Happy Kids:
In her book iGen, Jean Twenge, PhD describes today’s kids as “less rebellious, more tolerant, less happy and completely unprepared for adulthood”. Each chapter of her book theorizes on the “why” of this, backed up by research comparing the current generation with past generations. Since every child currently in the Ashland schools is part of this generation, a few weeks of this column will cover each of Twenge’s chapters which she cleverly titles beginning with the letter “i”. These will be very general, broad overviews. I encourage you to read the book for more in-depth information.

Internet: Online Time-Oh, and Other Media Too  Today’s high school seniors spend about six hours a day on screens (texting, internet,social media, gaming, video chat); 8th graders about five hours per day. Their phone screens are usually the last thing they see before they fall asleep and the first thing they see when they wake up. Ninety seven percent of 12th graders use social media at least sometimes. This is the new reality of teen social life: it’s conducted online. And phones are a constant presence in teen’s lives - while doing homework, trying to sleep, etc. - unless their phones are physically taken from them. One teen describes it: “The minute I start my homework I have to have my phone by me to see what my friends are texting, it’s like someone is constantly tapping you on the shoulder, and you have to look”. I can’t imagine homework is being done as well as it could be with this distraction.

One result of all this time teens spend on screens is a steep decline in reading books, magazines and newspapers. In the late 70’s about 65% of teens read for pleasure nearly every day. In 2015 that dropped to about 17% of teens reading daily for pleasure. For a generation raised to click on the next link or scroll to the next page within seconds, books just don’t hold their attention. Unfortunately, this could be contributing to lower SAT scores in writing and critical reading. iGen’ers’ academic skills lag behind their millenial predecessors’ by significant margins.

What can we, as parents, do?

1. Do not let children/teens have their phones in their rooms at night.
2. Take phones away from kids while they are studying and doing homework (or use an app that turns off apps at certain times of the day).
3. Encourage your kids to read daily. Help them find reading material that interests them - books about things they like to do or people they admire, magazines, graphic novels, comic strip books (my kids LOL when reading the  ‘Zits’ and ‘Foxtrot’ comic strip books).