By David Seale

A visitor to Jemison Middle School will always notice the sea of smiling faces, but this year, the smiles will be clad in either navy blue, white or gray shirts and khaki, navy or black pants. 

JMS introduced a new uniform policy to match the one at Jemison High School, and according to Jemison Middle School principal Mark Knight, it has been a terrific success so far.

“This was easily the smoothest first week of school we have had since I have been here, and the uniforms are a big part of that,” Knight said. “There were a lot of questions about it this summer from parents and a handful of grumbling students, but since school has started, the new policy is working even better than expected.”

Also new to JMS are several faculty members: Steve Karn (seventh grade history), Crystal Bass (sixth grade, all subjects), Ty Riggins (PE), Amanda Bates (Title 1 Reading teacher), Chris Baker (eighth grade history) and Lanelle Wood (eighth grade language arts).

“I couldn’t be more pleased with our new staff. We were strong before, as seen by our making AYP again, but now, our faculty is even better,” Knight said. “We were able to address some areas of concern brought on by the growth in the Jemison zone. Our classes were just too large last year, but with our new teacher additions, we’ve been able to meet a lot of those needs.”

Jemison Middle School is now a Title 1 school, and as a part of that designation, school officials will be scheduling a meeting for all parents in September to allow them to give input regarding the use of the Title 1 funding. 

This works well with some of the ideas for improvement Knight and his team have planned.

“We really want to get more parents involved in the school this year and not just for football games but all year long, and the Title 1 meetings are a great place to start,” he said. “We are putting together a committee to brainstorm ideas on ways to include parents even more.”

Knight said a formal announcement of the Title 1 meeting will come soon, and all parents of JMS students are invited. 

Any parent who would like to serve on the Parental Involvement Committee can e-mail David Seale at rdseale@chilton.k12.al.us to express an interest.

– David Seale is assitant principal at Jemison Middle School.