Jones Journal for Families

Jones Academy- where we #shinebright with #jonespride y somos #sololomejor. Please scroll to read this newsletter as it shares important information. ONE TEAM. ONE GOAL.

Principally Speaking

Open House is Next Week! We can’t wait to welcome our families to Open House⚽ so your students can proudly show off all the amazing learning happening in their classrooms! This is a special opportunity for your child to take the lead and share their hard work, growth, and accomplishments with you. During Open House, the Book Fair will be open, so be sure to stop by and find a great read! Kona Ice will also be outside for families who would like a sweet treat while you visit. 🍧 While you’re visiting, we also invite you to complete the Arlington ISD 2025–26 Parent Engagement and Satisfaction Survey. Your voice matters, and we truly want to hear from you! Please share your feedback about school safety, student well-being, campus communication, collaboration, academic partnerships, and more. Your responses help us continue improving and better serving your child and our school community. You can click the survey linked here to complete it online, or visit one of the survey stations that will be set up on campus during Open House. The survey is anonymous and will close on March 23, 2026. Thank you!

¡Están invitados a la Casa Abierta! ¡Estamos emocionados por dar la bienvenida a nuestras familias a la Casa Abierta para que sus estudiantes puedan mostrar con orgullo todo el increíble aprendizaje que se está llevando a cabo en sus aulas! Esta es una oportunidad especial para que su hijo/a tome la iniciativa y comparta su arduo trabajo, crecimiento y logros con ustedes. Durante la Casa Abierta, la Feria del Libro estará abierta, ¡así que no olviden pasar y disfrutar de una excelente lectura! Kona Ice también estará afuera para las familias que deseen un dulce durante su visita. 🍧 Durante su visita, también los invitamos a completar la Encuesta de Participación y Satisfacción de Padres del Distrito Escolar Independiente de Arlington 2025-26. ¡Su opinión es importante y realmente queremos saber de ustedes! Comparta sus comentarios sobre la seguridad escolar, el bienestar estudiantil, la comunicación en el campus, la colaboración, las alianzas académicas y más. Sus respuestas nos ayudan a seguir mejorando y a servir mejor a su hijo/a y a nuestra comunidad escolar. Puede hacer clic en la encuesta aquí para completarla en línea o visitar una de las estaciones de encuesta que se instalarán en el campus durante la Casa Abierta. La encuesta es anónima y se cerrará el 23 de marzo de 2026. ¡Gracias!

2026-2027 Calendar

The elementary and secondary student calendar for next school year, 2026-2027, has been approved and you can view it here to already plan ahead.

March 2026

Counselor Corner

You've Got This!

As a parent, you want your children to feel happy and confident about themselves. You also want them to have a healthy self-esteem. But at some point, your children may say things about themselves that will cause you some concern. Negative statements about their physical appearance, academic performance, athletic ability, peer interactions, or overall existence may be unexpected and unsettling as a parent. There are some children who are too hard on themselves, so it’s important to address this and help them learn to be more gentle on themselves. Here are some of the most effective ways to help your children who are too hard on themselves. Come alongside them in their struggles. Hold the space for them. Let them know it’s okay to struggle (since we know the struggles will not last). Kids don’t have the capacity to think too far into the future, so whatever they are experiencing in the moment does feel like forever. You might say: “It is hard to feel like that. I’m right here with you.” They need to know you will be there, that their feelings are not too much for you to handle, and that you will be with them throughout the journey. What a beautiful gift that is! Teach them the skills they lack. Some kids are hard on themselves because they continually feel like they fail to meet stated expectations. It is important to equip them in this area. Once you know why they’re struggling, you can better equip them with the skills they need to overcome the struggle in the future. You might say: “Let’s get creative and find ways to overcome this struggle.” If they are struggling academically, maybe they need a tutor, extra time with a teacher, join a peer study group, enroll in classes that teach the same subject from a different perspective. They will be less likely to be hard on themselves if they actually have the skill to overcome the struggle. Use encouraging language. Rather than expecting the worst or communicating through warnings, use more encouraging language so they can begin to internalize that same language for themselves. You might say: “You’re not catching onto adding two numbers yet. I believe in you and know you’ll get there.” Your overt language becomes their self-talk. So, if you want to raise a child who speaks kindly about themselves, they need to hear it first from the adults in their lives. Encourage them to sit with their discomfort. Kids often receive the message that uncomfortable feelings are bad. So, they take great efforts to deny, ignore, or distract themselves from these feelings. They may also internalize those feelings as a sign that they’re flawed in some way. These uncomfortable feelings may show up as boredom, loneliness, sadness, rejection, or anxiety. Most people don’t like these feelings and try to get through them or over them as quickly as possible. The problem with this thinking is that there are no bad feelings. Feelings are part of the human experience. It is not possible to turn off some feelings and leave the other feelings intact. That’s not how feelings work. Shutting off some feelings runs the risk of numbing out completely or losing the ability to decipher one’s true feelings. You can say: “I know it doesn’t feel good to feel lonely. Let’s sit with that feeling for a bit together. Let’s describe how loneliness feels and where we feel it in our body.” Model flexible thinking. Knowing when to pivot and make needed adjustments is not as easy as it sounds. However, negative self-talk tends to keep children trapped in a negative communication loop. You can say to your child, “You have gotten in the habit of saying negative things about yourself. Let’s think of some other reasons why you didn’t earn the grade you wanted on that test.” This gives them the message that although this is a problem, there are other ways to handle the situation. Help them learn frustration tolerance. Frustration tolerance is the ability to work through a challenging problem and then eventually figure out a solution. Building frustration tolerance helps to build emotional and social development. Provide small opportunities for your child to practice missing their goal, failing an assignment, or not meeting expectations without getting reprimanded for it or being rescued by you to figure it out. Allow them to work through feeling the frustration and then learning how to tolerate it. Start small if this is a challenge for them and then make it more challenging. Games based on chance (like Candy Land or Chutes & Ladders) are great ways to build this skill. They will learn to take turns, how to work through their feelings when they are losing or winning, and practice more adaptive ways of interacting with others regardless of the result.

Upcoming Events

• March 2-6- Read Across America & Book Fair Week
• March 5- Open House
• March 9- Spring Choir & Dance Crew Performance 6pm
• March 16-20- Spring Break
• March 26- Flashlight Friday
• March 31 & April 1- Addams Family Music Performance
• April 2- BINGO Night
• April 3- Student & Staff Holiday