November 2023

We are seeing an increasing number of student conflicts at KJHS caused by social media usage, especially Snap Chat. Given this, we wanted to share some insights into Snap Chat from our friends at Decatur Public Schools in Alabama. We hope the information below will help our Kingsley families provide guidance to students in the usage (or elimination) of this app. 

Does your child use Snapchat? It's a popular app with teenagers used for creating multimedia messages referred to as "snaps" that consist of a photo or a short video, and can be edited to include filters and effects, text captions, and drawings. While the premise behind the app seems innocent, it can lead to problems if used inappropriately. With school about to start, be sure you are up to speed on all that snapshot offers(good and bad).

Snapchat offers extra protections for 13-to-17-year-olds, including requiring teens to be mutually connected or in their respective phone contacts before they can start communicating.

Please follow the links below to learn more about tools parents can access to learn more about Snapchat safety:

Snap has a set of in-app parental tools called Family Center.  The goal of these tools is to help parents get insight into how their teens are using Snapchat, including who they are communicating with and what public content they are viewing. https://values.snap.com/safety/family-center

Easily report concerning accounts to Snap’s 24/7 Trust and Safety team.  You can learn more here: https://values.snap.com/safety/safety-reporting

Here is a list of important actions to help protect your teens on Snapchat.

FAMILY AND FRIENDS ONLY: Tell your teen to only invite and accept Friends on Snapchat if they are friends in real life or family members. Encourage them to check their Friends List regularly to make sure they still want to be in touch with each friend.

LOCATION AND PRIVACY SETTINGS: Talk to your teen about their location and privacy settings. At Snapchat, privacy settings are turned on by default, so people can only see the things you want to share, for as long as you want to share them.

IN-APP REPORTING: Make sure your teen knows how to use our in-app reporting tools and that we don’t tell Snapchatters who reported them. These reports go directly to our 24/7 Trust and Safety team to investigate and take appropriate action. We also offer reporting tools on our website for those who don’t use Snapchat – which any parent can easily use.

THINK BEFORE YOU SEND: Remind your teen that, as with sharing anything online, it’s important to be really careful about sending anyone – even a partner or close friend – personal or sensitive images and information. Snaps and Chats may delete by default, but there are ways to capture images from a phone or other device without a person’s consent. This is true despite Snapchat sending a notification in some instances when a screenshot is taken.

JOIN FAMILY CENTER: Make sure you and your teen are signed up for Snapchat’s Family Center.

Illinois School Report Cards were made public on October 30th and KJHS has received the designation of "targeted" due to the underperformance of a student subgroup. KJHS administration will be working with the KJHS Leadership Team this year to develop a support plan for these students. This plan will then be implemented over the next three years. For more information about how KJHS students performed last year, please view the KJHS 22-23 State Report Card. 

Given the fact that we have over 700 students in our KJHS community, conflicts are bound to occur. If your student is experiencing an issue with another student and needs adult assistance to help work things out, please encourage them to complete the "What's Up Kingsley?" form. This will alert the adults in the building to the issue and we will direct the students involved to the KJHS resource best suited to the conflict. 

Spirit wear sale: The KJHS PTO is hosting an online spirit wear store through November 25th. There are two shipping options--free shipping to KJHS or direct-to-your-home for an extra charge.  If you choose free shipping, the items will be sent home from school with your child.  This is a great opportunity to purchase holiday gifts as all items will arrive before winter break! 

Below are opportunities to help the KJHS PTO raise money to support the KJHS students and staff by doing things like funding teachers' classroom grant requests to enhance instruction, provide staff with uplifting luncheons and treats, purchase furniture to allow for flexible learning spaces, and much more! 

• PTO No Hassle Fundraiser: The easiest way to support the important work of the KJHS PTO is to make a donation through our No Hassle Fundraiser. 

• The PTO is selling Papa Murphy coupon cards for $5. If you are interested in purchasing one, please email the PTO at kjhspto@gmail.com. 

•  The Gobena Coffee Fundraiser is an ongoing one and an excellent opportunity to try some new, local coffee as well as raise money to help the PTO support our KJHS teachers. 

THANK YOU IN ADVANCE FOR YOUR SUPPORT!

November marks the beginning of talking "high school". Below are important dates as the 8th grade students will begin selecting the classes they want to take next year in high school. 

11/29 - Presentation by MS counselors to introduce the high school class selection process

11/29 - Freshman Orientation at Normal West Community High School starting at 6:30 pm 

12/5 -   High school counselor visits during 7th and 8th hour

12/12 - Team 8-1 individual student/counselor meeting to talk about course requests 

12/13 - Team 8-2 individual student/counselor meeting to talk about course requests 

January 2023 - Course requests entered into Infinite Campus

1/10 - Freshman Orientation at Normal Community High School starting at 6:30 pm 

3/22 - Last day to make changes to course requests 

Next Meeting

The next KJHS PTO meeting is Monday, January 22 at 6:30 pm in the KJHS IMC. 

Fundraiser

• Dine to Donate: December 19th at all local Jimmy John's locations

• PTO No Hassle Fundraiser: The easiest way to support the important work of the KJHS PTO is to make a donation through our No Hassle Fundraiser. 

• The PTO is selling Papa Murphy coupon cards for $5. If you are interested in purchasing one, please email the PTO at kjhspto@gmail.com. 

•  The Gobena Coffee Fundraiser is an ongoing one and an excellent opportunity to try some new, local coffee as well as raise

Want more information on the KJHS PTO? 

Visit the KJHS PTO Web Site

Student Council is putting on a dance from 3:45 - 5:30 in the KJHS cafeteria. The theme is "Winter Glow" and tickets are on sale now. Attendance is limited to 250 students and students with a 2nd quarter ISS or OSS will not be allowed to attend the event.