By David Seale

Beginning Jan. 19, the Jemison Middle School Student Government Association will hold its “Operation Freeze Iraq” campaign.
SGA is asking each student to bring a minimum of two unfrozen freeze pops to school, and the collected treats will be sent to US troops serving in Iraq.
“Our goal is to send at least 1,500, but sending more would be even better,” SGA sponsor and JMS computer teacher Shonda Copen said. “We thought this would be a nice way for our troops to celebrate the last summer they’ll have to spend in Iraq.”
Operation Freeze Iraq will continue until Feb. 12.
Jemison Middle School officials have announced that semester exams for seventh and eighth graders will start in May.
Semester exams in each class will cover the entire second semester’s content, will take place the last week of academic classes at JMS, and will count for 25 percent of the 4th nine weeks average.
A student may be exempt from an exam if he or she has an “A” in that class and has missed three or fewer days in that class from Jan. 18 to the end of the semester or has a “B” in that class and has missed two or fewer days in that class from Jan. 18 to the end of the semester.
Furthermore, absences for exemption include excused and unexcused absences and a day in In-School Suspension. Students cannot be suspended to be exempt nor have no more than 5 tardies.
Academic and athletic absences—such as baseball, scholar’s bowl, spelling bee, Beta, FCCLA, tennis, softball—will not count against exemption.
Finally, no requests for taking exams earlier than the scheduled days will be honored. JMS exam days will be announced in April when the Chilton County Board of Education decides on exams for all schools.
More information about the exams can be found on the school’s Web site, www.chilton.k12.al.us/JMS/jms.htm.

– David Seale is an assistant principal at Jemison Middle School.