A Letter to Parents

A letter to Parents and Guardians

Dear Parents and Guardians of Mr. Jaggard's 8^th Grade US History Students,

I am very excited to have your student in my class this year! The more you are involved in the learning process with your student, the more your student will learn and grow. You have found this website, which is a good start. Be sure to take some time to click around and become familiar with everything that is here. Let me know ASAP if you spot any errors or omissions, or if you are unable to open any of the files that are posted here. My goal is to make it as easy as possible for you and your student to access the resources they need in order for them to be successful in my class. If we all work together, every student in my class will master all of this material by the end of the year.

Earbuds! – One of the resources every student will need is their own pair of earbuds. There will be frequent opportunities for students to watch videos on their Chromebook or let the Chromebook "read" to them. The Chromebook can read websites, articles, assignments, quizzes, tests – pretty much anything they need to read. If your student is unable to bring their own pair of earbuds, let me know privately and I will provide a pair for them.

Red Cards / Blue Cards – Red is bad, Blue is good (ask your student about the relevance of these colors) – This is part of my classroom management system. When your student earns a card of either color, I will call you to discuss what they did to earn their card.

Daily Work Grade for the Week – All of our work will be done and graded in Google Classroom. At the end of each week I will dump all of the grades for that week into a spreadsheet and calculate a Daily Work Grade for the Week which will be a score between 0 and 100. This score represents the percent of the work that was completed satisfactorily by your student that week. To see the detailed grades that go into this score, you need to log into Google Classroom using your student's login credentials. Go to the Classwork tab and click the View Your Work link at the top of the page. You will see a list of assignments, starting with the most recent at the top. For each assignment you will be able to see if it is missing or has been turned in, if it was turned in late, the grade they earned, any attachments that were submitted, any comments I have made, and your student's responses to my comments.

Extra-Credit Assignments - I do not offer extra-credit assignments. If a student is not happy with the grade they have earned, they are welcome to re-do and re-submit any assignment or test on which they have earned less than full credit. If the re-done work is 100% complete, they will earn full credit on that assignment and their grades will be adjusted accordingly.

Test Grades - My students are always welcome to re-test if they are not satisfied with the grade they earned on their first attempt. However, they must earn the right to re-test by completing and submitting a Re-Test Request, the instructions for which are included on each Test assignment in Google Classroom. If they earn a higher grade on the re-test than they earned on the first attempt, I will replace their first grade with the higher grade. I will not lower a test grade, so there is no down-side risk to the student for making the attempt.

Posting Grades in Skyward - My commitment to you is that by the time I go to bed each Sunday night I will have graded and posted all of the work turned in during the previous week. If there is ever a delay in posting grades, I will send an email to all parents and guardians using the Skyward messaging system, so please make sure that your email address in Skyward is current and correct. I will give students time in class to check their grades in Skyward, so they should always know exactly where they stand and what they need to do if they want to improve their grade.

Grade-change Cutoff - I cannot change any grades after a Nine Week Grading Period has closed. Any student wanting to improve their grade either by re-doing daily work or re-taking a test must get it done prior to the end of the current Nine Week Grading Period.

Staying in Touch by Phone – My personal cell phone number is 361.779.9574 – feel free to call me any time of the day or night, any day of the week or weekend. I would rather get a call from you late at night or sometime on the weekend asking for help on an assignment than have your student show up in class the next day without having completed the assignment because they did not know what to do.

Staying in Touch by E-Mail – My e-mail address is TJaggard@acisd.org -- I check e-mail frequently and will generally respond to your message within a few hours, even on weekends. If you ever go more than 24 hours without getting an answer to an e-mail query, you should assume that your message to me has miscarried and needs to be resent or followed up with a text message or phone call.

Thanks for your interest and support!

Tom Jaggard

Grade 8 US History Teacher

Rockport-Fulton Middle School

Aransas County ISD

361.779.9574

TJaggard@acisd.org