School News

Dear Valley Jr High Parents and Families,

We are still very concerned with the large number of anonymous social media accounts promulgating fights and cyberbullying. While we report these accounts to the various platforms, primarily Instagram, kids are quick to create new ones. We need your help. Please review the attached document and monitor your child’s smart phone and social media use.

As a school and district, we do not have the ability to monitor every student’s social media use and often times, the accounts are private and we are unable to view the content. One of the attachments includes instructions on how parents and student can report inappropriate accounts directly to the platform. Please remind your student that harassment, bullying and racism of any kind will be thoroughly investigated and consequences administered. Certain conduct rises to criminal activity and law enforcement will also investigate. There are serious consequences to these types of activities.

If your student knows who is behind these anonymous accounts we ask that either the student or parent let the school know so that we can get it stopped. If the student does not feel comfortable coming in to report the issue we encourage them to use the SafeUT app.

We are here to support your child’s education and appreciate your support as we work to create a safe environment for all.

Directions for reporting abusive social media accounts

Sincerely,

Rich Nielsen
Valley Jr High

Dear Valley Jr High Parents,

My apologies for the multiple emails the last two days.

I wanted to make sure everyone was aware of a couple of items as we look toward the next two weeks of school.

This week we have school on Monday and Tuesday and then are off for the holiday the rest of the week (Wednesday November 24 thru Friday November 26).  There also is no school on Monday November 29th as it is a teacher professional development day. So in summary there is No School from Nov 24-29.

This year at Valley we have placed a large emphasis on reading and reading comprehension. Part of that focus is to provide students with time each day during 5th period to read. Many students are using novels they bring, but a large number of students are utilizing the SORA Digital Library through the school and district. If you are not familiar with SORA I would encourage you to sit down with your student and have them review the thousands of reading options for them. The reason I would encourage you to do this soon is that it would be a great resource to keep your student reading over the coming week without school and through the holidays.  Valley is at the top of circulation checkouts with SORA this year in the district and it is great to see the students reading.

Finally, as parents and students have conversations this weekend about the weapon incident Friday at school, I would like to let parents know of a resource available to students.  We are very fortunate to have a full time Licensed Clinical Social Worker at our school. Mr. Larsen has cleared his schedule for Monday so that he is available to visit with any student that may be struggling with anxiety or have concerns returning to school. His office is located in the counseling center. Please let Mr. Larsen know if he can be of assistance to your student in this regard (bklarsen@graniteschools.org).

Thank you again for your support of your student and Valley Junior High. Have a great weekend.

Rich Nielsen
Principal, Valley Junior High School

Dear Valley Junior High Community,

As we are well on our way in the second quarter, we wanted to send a few reminders and information items.

With the colder weather approaching, we remind parents and students that our gymnasium is open most mornings at 6:40 a.m. for students that need to arrive early. Students are welcome to be in the gym to stay warm, work on school work or play basketball.

The cafeteria opens at 7:15 for breakfast each day. Breakfast, just like lunches, are free to all students this year.

The main doors of the school open at 7:30 am each day.

Traffic on 3200 West is always a concern for our students walking to and from school. Parents are asked to please not drop off their student on the West side of 3200 West or stop in the middle of the street and have their child run across the street without the use of the designated crosswalk. 

There is no school for students from Wednesday November 24 thru Monday November 29th.  This is due to the Thanksgiving Recess and a Teacher Work Day without students on the 29th.

We wanted to pass along some information on the great work that so many of our students are engaged in this year. We again had around 400 students that were eligible for our Reward Activity for the month of October. The criteria was to have fewer than 4 tardies for the entire month. It is awesome to have so many students that consistently get to class on time and show Liger PRIDE.

Also we are grateful to have our students back in the building this year as opposed to doing distance learning like last year. The result has been a sharp decrease in the failure rate for the 1st quarter of the year. Last year we had a class failure rate for first quarter of 26.3%. This year, with our students all back in the classroom, we had a failure rate of 11.7%. This is the lowest failure rate in the last 5 years at Valley. Great work to our students and teachers this year!

Thanks again for your continued support of the students and staff at Valley Junior High.

Dear Parents and Employees of Granite School District,

We have reached out to you previously on this issue, but now reach out again. An ongoing problematic trend has arisen on the Tik Tok social media platform, wherein students film themselves stealing items from or destroying school restrooms and other facilities. Within the last month alone, we have seen a significant spike in vandalism at several school locations and damage done at every level, including elementary and jr. high.  

New challenges have been introduced which would have student sexually harass fellow students or assault school employees. We call upon parents and families to help our children understand that such acts are criminal. In the interest of our staff and students safety, such acts will be aggressively investigated and charged and invariably, when convicted, students and families will be responsible to compensate for damages.

Despite the tremendous investment and resources in cameras and security systems, the eyes and ears of our students continue to be the best tool in helping keep our students safe. As such, please also encourage your student to report unsafe or other criminal behavior to a trusted adult, or if they wish to be anonymous, they can report directly to our police department at 801-481-7122 or utilize the SafeUT app.

We sincerely appreciate your help in working to curb this expensive and destructive trend.

Granite School District

Hello Valley Parents and Guardians,

Parent Teacher Conferences
This week we will be hosting our Fall Parent Teacher Conferences. There will be two afternoons/evenings of meetings. On Tuesday all appointments will be pre-scheduled through zoom. On Wednesday the appointments will be first-come first served and in person in the teacher’s classrooms.
We are strongly encouraging parents utilize Zoom on Tuesday as opposed to in-person on Wednesday. Currently about half of the possible appointments are available. Please sign up via the website https://pickatime.com/granitesd.
If you are unable to utilize the zoom conference on Tuesday and need to participate in person, we strongly recommend only coming with one parent and the student in order to minimize the number of people in the building. Masks are also recommended and will be available if you need one.

No School Friday
There is no school on Friday October 1st due to Parent Teacher Conferences this week. Enjoy a safe three day weekend!

TikTok Challenge and Bathroom Update
Over the last week or so we have seen a decline in the amount of vandalism in relation to the unacceptable TikTok Bathroom Challenge that was sweeping the country. We had multiple students suspended and referred to law enforcement for criminal charges for vandalism. We appreciate the many students we had reporting the damage that allowed us to find the students responsible for the damage.
As you likely have heard, we had all of our student restroom soap dispensers removed from the building. The vast majority of them were ripped off the walls and destroyed. This obviously creates multiple problems in terms of proper hygiene and hand washing. We have obtained two soap dispensers that we are going to place in the Center Hall bathrooms. We will be checking that bathroom multiple times each period to try and ensure that the soap remains accessible to students this week with hopes of purchasing and mounting additional soap dispensers over the coming weeks.

Behaviors Vastly Improved
We appreciate all the parents that had conversations with students about how to deal with conflict and what to do if there are rumors of a fight. The last two weeks in school the behaviors and amount of student conflict has been drastically improved. We have been able to work through a number of conflict mitigation strategies with students that were willing to say they were having issues with other students. We are grateful for the progress being made and look forward to continued teaching opportunities.

Picture Day Retakes
For any student that needs to use the picture day retake please mark down November 2nd on your calendar. More information will come out prior to the retake day.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Rich Nielsen
Principal, Valley Jr High

Registration Information:

• Registration materials will be mailed home the week of July 19.

• Registration for students that attended a school in Granite School District last year will be completed online in the parent portal beginning July 28th.

• Students that are new to Granite will begin registration August 2nd.

Valley Jr. High has completed its reopening plan for the 2020-21 academic year. Please see below.

Valley reopening plan

Valley Junior High Community Council will meet on April 28th at 2:30 pm. The meeting will be held via Zoom meeting room.In order to maintain security in light of recent Zoom-bombings, a meeting code is required. If you would like a meeting code, please email Principal Nielsen at rsnielsen1@graniteschools.org.

Today, in a news conference, Governor Herbert announced an extension of the statewide school dismissal through the end of the school year (Memorial Day).

Valley’s website will continue to be updated with information regarding lockers, refunds, grades, and Chromebook returns so please check back frequently.

Teachers will be available via Google Meet for students to connect with during the following times:

Department	Days	Time
Math	Monday & Wednesday	12:00 – 1:00
Science	Monday & Wednesday	9:30 – 10:30
English	Monday & Wednesday	10:00 – 11:00
Social Studies	Monday & Wednesday	10:30 – 11:30
CTE	Tuesday & Thursday	9:00 – 10:00
PE/Health	Tuesday & Thursday	9:30 – 10:30
Special Education	Tuesday & Thursday	10:00 – 11:00
Arts & Spanish	Tuesday & Thursday	10:30 – 11:30

For support from a teacher please email them directly. If you need support from administration or school counselors please email or call:

Rich Nielsen, rsnielsen1@graniteschools.org, 385-646-5237

Jen Jacobson, jkjacobson@graniteschools.org, 385-646-1113

Sarah Rogers, swrogers@graniteschools.org, 385-646-3655

Jacob Ballentine, jballentine@graniteschools.org, 385-646-3657

Genevieve Strattman, gstrattman@graniteschools.org, 385-646-1535