Every year, the teachers at Salem Junior who are a part of the Nebo Educators Association (NEA) choose a teacher to recognize for their overall excellence and to recognize them with an award called the Crystal Apple Award. This year Scott Shaffer, one of the art teachers here at SaJHS received that honor.
The marching band attended their first competition of the season on Saturday at Payson High School and placed 4th overall among 11 bands in their division as well as 2nd and 3rd place in the categories of percussion, overall visual effect, and color guard. On a 100 point scale, Salem was only .2 and .6 points behind 2nd and 3rd place. The band will be competing again this coming Saturday at Utah State University at 11:30 am. We're excited for a great start to the season.
There are seven 9th-grade students who are in the high school marching band:
The construction of Valley View Middle School is progressing nicely. Mr. Knudsen reports that the building is over 50% finished and easily on schedule to finish in time.
Girls intramural tennis had a great tournament today here at home. In the picture above you see Constance Dayley & Olivia Jackson playing in a doubles team against Payson Jr.
Intramural tennis is after school every Tues. Wed. and Thurs. for the next few weeks.
Congratulations to our awesome students of the month for October. These students exemplify Spartan Spirit of Body, Heart, and Mind. Way to go Alex Patron (9th), Max Tripp (9th), Izzy Brown (9th), Andrew Henderson (9th), Olivia McDermott (8th), Elexa Roundy (8th), Ashlynn Prestwich (7th), Sienna Matys (7th), Mia Johnson (7th), Braxton Houtz (8th). Keep up the good work, Spartans!
Earlier this month, all the students here at SaJHS took a reading test in their English class. The reading test, called the HMH Reading Inventory, is an adaptive test that determines students' reading level and assigns a Lexile score. Each grade has a Lexile goal where they should be at the end of the year to be considered on grade level. As you can see with the attached image, the kids at our school scored really well on this test with the majority of students in each grade at or above grade-level benchmarks.
Wednesday, September 25 will be for picture retakes. Any student who needs retakes done should bring the original pictures with them and be ready to look their best. Also, students who weren't at school for pictures need to have a picture taken, even if they aren't planning on purchasing the pictures. These pictures are used in our grading system as well as the yearbook at the end of the year.
Salem Junior High will be competing this year in the Battle of the Books. Basically, students will form teams and read books from a pre-selected list and then compete by answering questions about the different books. Teammates will depend on each other as they will all be reading different books from the list. It is a fun, friendly competition and a great challenge for students who love reading.
Many students have already picked up applications to join a team that need to be signed by parents and turned in by tomorrow if they want to compete in the Battle of the Books.
It's hard to believe we are almost to the middle of term 1! With mid-term comes our Parent Teacher Conferences, which will be held on Thursday, September 26, 3:00-6:30 p.m. (please note the change in time from previous years). This is a great time for parents, students, and teachers to meet together and discuss the student's progress in school and/or challenges in school so that the "team" for your student is all on the same page.