Please help us welcome back our amazing faculty and staff with ICE CREAM!! Ben & Jerry’s will be on hand to serve up some delicious ice cream, but we could use volunteers to help during the event and a few more to supply drinks and some other tasty treats.
If you can’t be there that day, but still want to help here is our sign-up genius.
https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C0544A4AB2FA20-tjstaff
Dr. Bajusz is an accomplished teacher, tutor and academic coach. After leaving a thirty-year career in private industry and government, he has devoted himself to tutoring and teaching reading comprehension, critical thinking and problem-solving, advanced grammar and writing to elementary, middle and high school students. In addition to having taught at the university level as a graduate student, since 2013.
Dr. Bajusz would like to hold a mock PSAT test and review for all TJ Students on September 19th, Saturday from 10AM to 2PM. Please join him at https://join.skype.com/lT8asJPxFNOo. Dr. Bajusz’s phone number is 703-505-1505.
The TJ PTSA seeks parents interested in becoming involved at TJ by serving on one of the TJPTSA committees.
TJPTSA has four main committees and numerous subcommittees. The committee descriptions are below. Think you might be interested? Fill out the Volunteer Interest Form to learn more about these opportunities.
1. Academic Support Committee: Educating parents about how best to navigate TJ in an effort to help parents better support their students. The Academic Support Committee fosters relationships with the TJ staff to build consensus for collaborative solutions through dialogue and engagement. Activities include Navigating TJ Workshop and Senior Sharing events.
2. College Outreach Committee: To assist students with a focus on junior and senior classes in understanding the college application process and career choices, assisting TJ’s College and Career Center (CCC) with what is needed to improve outreach to colleges and universities, and assisting the CCC in fostering better connections with college admission officers and promoting TJ by providing volunteers. Activities include organizing forums for students and parents.
3. Diversity Committee: To celebrate the diversity at TJ and champion effective, measurable strategies and actions that strength TJ’s ability to quantifiably attract, develop and graduate students from underrepresented minority groups. The TJ PTSA Diversity Committee sponsors event to promote awareness of STEM and TJ, with a focus on underrepresented students. In addition, the Diversity Committee promotes connections and community.
4. Family Engagement Committee: Increasing awareness of mental health and emotional well-being within the TJ community. Particularly, the Family Engagement Committee works to engage the TJ parent community in the school wide efforts focusing on student balance and wellness. Another important focus is to organize events to shown the faculty and staff at TJ our appreciation for their amazing efforts in educating and nurturing our children. This committee has the following subcommittees: All Night Graduate Party, Challenge Success, Health and Wellness, Hospitality, Membership, Reflections, and Human Relations.
Questions? Email executive@tjptsa.org. We look forward to working together to support our children and the TJ Community.
TJPTSA Executive Board
In the spirit of diversity, equity, and inclusiveness, we would like to ask parents of the TJ community questions directly from the U.S. Department of Education National Center for Education Statistics about their experiences and concerns from the past academic year. The survey intends to measure the strengths of the TJ community-building effort, opportunities we should pursue, and concerns we should address so that we can build the optimum supportive environment for TJ students and families.
Dear TJPTSA members,
The Executive Committee of TJPTSA met on August 8th, 2021, and has voted to appoint Mr. Randy Turner as Academic Support Committee Chair, Ms. Julia McCaskill as Diversity Committee Chair, Ms. Alice Wang as College Outreach Committee Chair, and Ms. Shawnna Yashir as Family Engagement Committee Chair.
We appreciate their willingness to serve in TJPTSA, and look forward to working together in the upcoming school year.
Lastly, thank you for the support regarding our fact-finding mission related to the “orientation” advertised by the TJ Alumni Action Group. I will keep the membership updated on our discussions, as I did with the update I sent today from the Office of the President. Any position statement by the TJPTSA will be voted upon by the general membership.
Best regards,
Harry Jackson
President, TJPTSA
Dear TJPTSA members,
The TJPTSA Executive Committee held a meeting on August 3rd, and has decided to consolidate all TJPTSA functions into four committees with their specific missions given below:
1. Academic Support Committee: Educating parents about how best to navigate TJ in an effort to help parents better support their students. The Academic Support Committee fosters relationships with the TJ staff to build consensus for collaborative solutions through dialogue and engagement.
2. College Outreach Committee: To assist students with a focus on junior and senior classes in understanding the college application process and career choices, assisting TJ’s College and Career Center (CCC) with what is needed to improve outreach to colleges and universities, and assisting the CCC in fostering better connections with college admission officers and promoting TJ by providing volunteers.
3. Diversity Committee: To celebrate the diversity at TJHSST and champion effective, measurable strategies and actions that strengthen TJHSST’s ability to quantifiably attract, develop and graduate students from underrepresented minority groups. The TJHSST PTSA Diversity Committee sponsors events to promote awareness of STEM and TJHSST, with a focus on underrepresented students. In addition, the Diversity Committee promotes connections and community.
4. Family Engagement Committee: Increasing awareness of mental health and emotional well being within the TJ community. Particularly, The Family Engagement Committee works to engage the TJ parent community in the school wide efforts focusing on student balance and wellness. In addition, we organize events to show the faculty and staff at TJ our appreciation for their amazing efforts in educating and nurturing our children. This committee has the following subcommittees: All Night Graduation Party, Challenge Success, Health & Wellness, Hospitality, Membership, Reflections, and Human Relations.
IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT! The Executive Committee is actively seeking TJ parents to serve in all these four committees as either chairs or members. If you are interested in volunteering at any of the committees, please send us an email to executive@tjptsa.org, preferably by August 8th,2021, with your name, your child’s class, the TJPTSA committee position of your interest, and a brief introduction of yourself.
We look forward to your service at TJPTSA that will make TJ a better place for our children.
Best regards,
TJPTSA Executive Board
TJ Community,
Today, the TJPTSA Executive Board received and accepted the resignation of Bonnie Qin as TJPTSA President, effective immediately. We thank her for her service and wish her well.
Consistent with the bylaws of the TJPTSA, I am stepping up to serve as President. I am honored to have your support. I, along with the other members of the Executive Board, have worked very hard to save our TJPTSA and look forward to supporting our students, teachers and families, as a cohesive, productive organization.
We look forward to welcoming the incoming class of 2025 and making this next school year a wonderful experience for all.
Harry Jackson
TJ PTSA President
The 2021 Outdoor Senior Celebration Was a Smashing Success!
Congratulations, Class of 2021 graduates!!!
The 2021 Outdoor Senior Celebration was held at TJ on June 6th, 4:00 pm – 7:00 pm as planned. Thank you to all the volunteers, TJ PTSA, Student Activities Office, and the Custodial staff for helping make the party such a great success! Parents from all class years volunteered at this event. Our newly minted graduates had a blast and thoroughly enjoyed the activities. Parents enjoyed watching the graduates together and having fun. It was an amazing end to their years at TJ.
Thanks to several highly-skilled parent photographers who took and shared wonderful photos from the event, and we would like to share them with all of you. Below are links to the photo albums:
https://flic.kr/s/aHsmVW5gQk (Qiang Lu)
https://photos.app.goo.gl/haQtLDzS9SGg8ShP6 (Yongtong Hu)
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/16_s93PWGeKLitaVPLvc8-5luQCMZBkV3?usp=sharing （Hongbiao Song）
https://www.flickr.com/photos/29040263@N02/albums/72157719366661818 (Arnold Sowa)
Photo Booth pictures are also available now from Extraordinary Entertainment Inc. It’s great to see that parents and students all enjoyed the Photo Booth. Follow the link below to see the Photo Booth pictures.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1KRjylqPpXC_AfigoDyMnn3vNnN_zyD7t?usp=sharing
Congratulations again to our graduates! We wish all of you the best of luck in college and beyond! We wish all TJ families a great summer!
Sumei Wang, Qing Gou, Ram Boreda
ANGP & Senior Celebration Committee
Hello TJ class of 2020 parents.
Hope you are doing well and getting ready for the summer!
As you may know, the Facebook group for TJ class of 2020 parents is no longer active. Ram Boreda has created a new Facebook group for 2020 TJ parents and invites you to join here:https://www.facebook.com/groups/1128846430914641/
A few 2020 parents are organizing two reunion events on May 23rd and June 26th for the class of 2020 students since they missed their senior celebration events last year due to Covid-19.
The above FB group will be used for planning the event this summer and future activities. If you have any questions, please join the above group for more information.
Here are the FB invites to reunion events this summer.
TJ 2020 summer reunion #1 at Burke Lake Park on Sunday, May 23 from 4-8 pm.
This event was a great success, click here for more info.
TJ 2020 summer reunion #2 at Barcroft Park on June 26th from 3-7 pm
https://fb.me/e/8WLlHwk3b
The Class of 2021 is winding up their four years of TJ, and everyone was invited back for in person school on Thursday and Friday last week, topped off by great time together at the May Senior Social on Friday afternoon.
280 students gathered, most in t-shirts of their future college, to connect with others going to the same school, congratulate each other, and enjoy some rare time all together with friends in this senior year of limited contact.
The rain held off enough to allow the event to be held mostly in the courtyard by Nobel Commons.
This slice of normalcy was a chance for seniors to just be seniors, to talk and smile and be together.
Thank you to all the volunteers and the administration who made this possible!
The Class of 2021 is looking forward to graduation and the grad party to come.
Congrats to the seniors on girls lacrosse—unfortunately their game was canceled due to stormy weather. All the best to them and all the seniors as they say goodbye to their TJ days later this week!
