December 2010

Dear TJ Community:

It is hard to believe that we have almost finished the first semester of the school year. We have much to celebrate.
• Overall student attendance is 89%
• We now offer seven dual enrollment courses
• We continue to see a decline in behavior incidents
• We are offering more club opportunities to engage students in school
• More students are accessing EXCEL time due to the time change
• At present, we have 240 seniors who are on track to graduate in May 2011
• Student enrollment is up from last year
• Staff participates in instructional rounds to discuss best practices
• AP tutorial and practice tests occur on Saturdays
• Increased participation at parent/teacher conferences
• Increased interest from incoming 8th graders

While we have much work still ahead, so we should all take a moment to celebrate our efforts, rejuvenate, and prepare for the semester ahead.
Happy Holidays!
Sandra Just,
TJ Principal

November 2010

TJ goes green!  The district has released the latest school performance frameworks (SPF). Thomas Jefferson High School moved from ‘yellow’ to ‘green’ classification, due to student growth on CSAP. This is exciting news for us to celebrate.

The SPF is a mechanism the district uses to accredit schools, as required by the Colorado Department of Education. It is a comprehensive body of evidence about school performance. Green means that a school is meeting expectations. [Read more about it here!]

We celebrate our work from last year and continue to work at building academic rigor and post secondary readiness.

Thanks to everyone for their efforts last year. We built strong connections and systems to use as our foundation.

Go Spartans!

Sandra Just
Principal

TJ Open House Video: Thursday, October 14, 2010

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Schedule Alerts

Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday [February 23-25] will all be regular eight-period days, no blocks.

Thomas Jefferson High School
Bell Schedule

Day/Per.	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
Period 1	7:30 to 8:20	7:30 to 8:20	Period 1 7:30 to 9:05	Period 2 7:30 to 9:05	7:30 to 8:20
Period 2	8:25 to 9:15	8:25 to 9:15			8:25 to 9:15
Period 3	9:20 to 10:10	9:20 to 10:10	EXCEL TIME 9:05 – 10:05	Period 4 9:10 to 10:45	9:20 to 10:10
Period 4	10:15 to 11:17	10:15 to 11:17	Period 3 10:05 to 11:40		10:15 to 11:17
Lunch	11:17 -12:05	11:17 – 12:05	11:40 – 12:25	10:45–11:30	11:17 – 12:05
Period 6	12:05 – 12:55	12:05 – 12:55	Period 7 12:25 to 1:55	Period 6 11:30 to 1:05	12:05 – 12:55
Period 7	1:00 to 1:50	1:00 to 1:50			1:00 to 1:50
Period 8	1:55 to 2:45	1:55 to 2:45		Period 8 1:10 to 2:45	1:55 to 2:45
2:50 to 4:00			Professional Dev.

August 2010

Dear Parents and Students,

Welcome back to an exciting school year. I hope everyone had a restful summer. We start the year with news to celebrate. We saw gains in all 9th grade CSAP areas: reading, writing, and math. Along with the increase in proficiency, we saw a decline in the achievement gap scores. Freshman Academy was successful, with 174 incoming students joining us during the last week in July.

The staff and I are excited to begin the school year. Many staff members participated in AVID, AP, and teacher leadership training over the summer. Our focus areas for the year will be: analytical writing in all content areas, putting our core values into action, and continuing our work to ensure all student are college and career ready. Our definition of college readiness will be that students are ready for postsecondary options with no need of remediation.

Families are the cornerstone of our work. Parents assisted in a successful schoolwide clean up day and 9th grade BBQ. We look forward to continuing conversations with our families. Back to school night is August 26th from 5:00-7:00 p.m.. A mandatory senior meeting will follow at 7:15 p.m. I look forward to seeing everyone.

Sandra Just
Principal

May 2010

Dear Parents and Students,

Thanks for allowing the staff and myself to be a part of your child’s education this past year.  We look forward to our work together next year.

Just a few important dates to keep in mind before you head off to a relaxing summer:

Summer office hours: M-F 6/1-25/10, and 7/22/10 – 8/11/10; 7 a.m. – 3 p.m.
Offices are closed 6/28/10- 7/21/10,  Voice mail will be monitored during closure.
9^th Grade Academy: July 26 – 29, 2010
9^th grade Barbeque: Thursday, August 5, 2010 at 6 p.m.
Mandatory Senior meeting: Thursday, August 26, 2010 at 7:15 p.m.
1^st day of school for 9^th graders: Thursday, August 19, 2010
1^st day of school for grades 10 -12: Friday, August 20, 2010
Back to School Night: Thursday, August 26, 2010, 5 – 7 p.m.

I am looking forward to seeing everyone in August.  Enjoy your summer!

Sandra Just
Principal

Sharefest 2010

Sharefest 2010

On July 31st a group of community minded families will converge on Thomas Jefferson High School to show their support for their community high school. Members of the New City Church plan to paint and clean their way through TJ in an effort to further our ongoing work and to show pride in their community. This second annual event, called Sharefest, is done also to encourage members of the TJ community to give some of their time to make TJ a better place for students to attend school.

The focus for this year is to paint the pillars in the front of the building to match the guard rail that was painted at last year’s Sharefest, and to scrub out as many lockers as possible. There are 18 pillars to paint and 1100 lockers to clean, so we can use all the help we can get.

If you would like to support Sharefest please contact Scott Lessard at Scott_Lessard@dpsk12.org and let him know you are coming. Last year we had nearly 100 students, parents and community members show up to help out. We would like to see even more folks participate this year. If you have a project that you would like to see addressed please include that information with your communication. Groups that want to focus on a specific job are highly encouraged to participate (for example, the softball team replacing the wind screen around the dug outs).

As a side note, TJ is implementing a community service requirement for students this year, and hours spent at Sharefest will be counted towards a student’s annual hours needed.

Thank you in advance for helping TJ be the best it can be, and we look forward to seeing you there.

April 2010

As we near the end of the year, it is time to take stock of all of our celebrations. Here are a few:

• Two Daniels Fund Scholars
• Over 1 million dollars in scholarship money earned to date
• 38 State & 3 National DECA qualifiers
• 15 new NHS inductees
• Two Magnet students National SkillsUSA finalists
• Successful CSAP completion
• Increased number of students on track due to credit recovery offerings
• Instructional Rounds – staff is visiting each others’ classrooms and studying indicators of student engagement
• Average attendance is ranging 89-90%.

Minha Vida Carioca (My Rio de Janeiro Life)

All you have to do is simply look.
by TJ Alumni, Alia Gant (Class of 2007)

Read more

March 2010

We are just days away from CSAP testing.  We have been preparing all year and we are ready to go!  Thanks for your support.  For a listing of dates/times please see the link for our testing calendar.
Recently we sent home a letter, from the district, discussing the fiscal concerns for the next school year.  During the past week, Thomas Jefferson High School received our operating budget for 2010 – 2011.  As expected, we will be facing reductions.  We are committed to providing the best service that we can to students and still maintain a balanced budget.
We have been looking ahead to our vision for the future, as well.  We want to continue to grow the options that our students have for past secondary success.  There is a link on our web page outlining our proposal.  We have submitted a school improvement grant to the district requesting 1.8 million, over the next three years, to fund this proposal.  We will find out in March if we receive funding.
While economic times are difficult, we are still committed to meeting the needs of our community.  We will update you, as new information becomes available.

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