The GJM Way

Dear GJM Families,

Welcome back to a brand-new school year! We are off to a wonderful start, and I am so excited about all that is ahead for our students and families this year. Our halls are full of energy, our classrooms are buzzing with learning, and our staff is working hard to make GJM a place where every student feels known, valued, challenged, and supported.

One of our big focuses this year is Capturing Kids’ Hearts. We are practicing strategies that help students build strong team relationships—not only within their classrooms, but across our entire campus. We want our students to know that they are an important part of the GJM team and that the way we treat, encourage, and support one another matters. Building those relationships will be an important part of creating the positive school culture we want for our students.

Thank You for Your Feedback!

I also want to thank our parents for the thoughtful feedback you provided regarding our walker and biker dismissal procedures. We listened, made adjustments, and appreciate your partnership as we continue to look for ways to make dismissal both safe and efficient for everyone. Your feedback truly does help us improve!

Exciting Changes Are Coming to GJM

We have some exciting improvements ahead, but they will also bring some changes to our daily routines. Construction on the outside of our building is scheduled to begin in October. Later in the spring, construction will move inside the building as remodeling begins. This work will require us to make some procedural changes for students, staff, and visitors as different areas of the building are affected. Please know that we will communicate plans and changes well in advance so that everyone has time to understand what to expect. Our priority throughout the construction process will be the safety and well-being of our students and staff while keeping learning moving forward.

Lunch Visits Begin September 22nd

We are excited to welcome parents back for lunch visits beginning September 22nd We have more information about this further down in the newsletter.

As always, thank you for trusting us with your children and for being such an important part of the GJM team. We are looking forward to a fantastic year of learning, growing, building relationships, and making memories together.

This is going to be a great year at GJM!

With appreciation,

Monica Waggoner
Principal, GJM Elementary

Mrs. Jimenez is our GJM school guidance counselor. She has been with this Ingleside school district for over 25 years now. She is highly committed to making students feel like family here at GJM.

Last year we welcomed Mrs. Mehgan Younk to our counseling team as our Communities in Schools liaison. She is steeped in Ingleside community as a mother of Ingleside students herself.

Our campus is so lucky to have these ladies helping us make sure your student has all the support they need.

The city of Ingleside has approved a new ordinance regarding scooters and e-bikes. We have been asked to share this information with you. This ordinance does mean some restriction or requirements for some of the transportation students are using to get to and from school. You can follow this link to our Ingleside ISD page to read the ordinance details from the city.

We will continue our GJM Family Game Nights this year in the same style as this year.

Fall- October 20th

Winter- January 26th

Spring- March 23rd

We hope you can plan to join us for these events. They do take specific preparation and head counts, so they do require registration. We will have registration open one month prior to each to provide plenty of planning time. Notification for the registration forms will go out to families through the monthly newsletter, the live feed on our campus webpage, and in flyers that will be posted at the office and sent home with your students.

We hope you join us for these nights of silly fun, prizes, and some healthy competition with each other!

Thank you to our Ingleside ISD School Board for the dedication it took to make this happen!

As most of you have seen by now, our district communications are being streamlined. If your student was in Ingleside ISD last year, you received an email with a request to set up your Ingleside ISD app. All campuses are using Rooms for things like classroom newsletters, reminder messages and quick messages during the school day. The communication in this app is two-way. It is a great way to ask your child's teachers quick questions, directly, and stay up to speed on all the events going on in the classroom and on the campus. Below are two flyers that can help you get started, if you have not already.

Lunch visits will follow the same procedures we used last year, including requirements for sign-up, check-in, and visitation. All of the guidelines and expectations can be found on the lunch page of the GJM website, along with the sign-up form. The days of the week remain the same for these visits (Tuesday- Thursday).

The sign-up form will open one week in advance for the first week of visits and will close once all available spots have been filled. We encourage families who would like to join their child for lunch to watch for the sign-up window and review the guidelines before visiting.

Thank you for helping us maintain procedures that keep our students safe while allowing us to welcome our families into the school.

Keeping Our Students Safe and Our Traffic Moving

Each morning and afternoon, our goal is the same: get students to and from school safely, efficiently, and with as little traffic congestion as possible. We ask all GJM families to become familiar with our arrival and dismissal pathways and to follow them each day.

Morning Arrival

Our morning arrival procedures are designed to keep buses and car riders moving safely onto campus.

🚌 Bus Riders

School buses will follow the designated bus pathway shown in green on the morning map. Students arriving by bus will be unloaded in the designated area on campus and will then enter the building with staff supervision.

🚗 Car Riders

Families bringing students to school by car should follow the designated car rider pathway, shown in blue on the morning map. Please remain in the car rider line and follow the direction of staff members assisting with arrival.

An important reminder: Please pull as far forward as possible in the car rider drop-off area. Filling the entire drop-off zone allows us to unload more students at one time, which helps keep the line moving and reduces the amount of time parents have to wait.

For everyone's safety, please do not pass other vehicles or stop in areas outside of the designated drop-off zone.

Afternoon Dismissal

Afternoon dismissal involves several different groups of students, so it is especially important that everyone follows the correct pathway.

🚌 Bus Riders

Bus riders will follow the green bus pathway shown on the afternoon map. Students will be escorted to their buses and dismissed according to our regular bus procedures.

🚗 Car Riders

Car riders will follow the blue car rider line shown on the map. Please remain in your vehicle and follow the directions of staff members. We ask that parents pull as far forward as possible in the line so that we can load and release as many students as possible at one time.

This helps us move the car line efficiently and gets everyone home more quickly.

🚶‍♀️🚲 Walkers and Bikers

Students who are walking or biking home will follow the purple walker/biker pathway shown on the afternoon map. These students will be dismissed through the designated process and will leave campus using the identified route.

For the safety of our walkers and bikers, Avenue K is a no-parking zone during dismissal. Please do not park along Avenue K to wait for or pick up your child.

Keeping this area clear is essential because it allows staff to maintain a safe pathway for students who are walking or biking away from campus.

🚸 Crossing Guard Stations

The orange stars on the afternoon map identify our designated crossing guard stations. Students who need to cross the streets will be directed to these locations.

Please help us reinforce an important safety message with your children: always use the designated crossing locations and follow the directions of our crossing guards and school staff.

Our GJM Safety Partnership

A smooth arrival and dismissal depends on all of us doing our part. Please:

• Follow the designated pathway for your child's transportation method.

• Follow the directions of GJM staff members.

• Pull forward as far as possible in the car rider line.

• Do not pass vehicles in the car rider line.

• Do not park along Avenue K during dismissal.

• Use designated crossing areas.

• Be patient and attentive as students and staff move throughout the dismissal areas.

We know arrival and dismissal can be busy, but these procedures are designed with one priority in mind: keeping our GJM students safe. Thank you for helping us make arrival and dismissal a smooth, predictable, and safe part of every school day.

Thank you for partnering with us to keep The GJM Way safe!

At GJM, we value partnering with families to help every student succeed. Our Title I Parent Information Meeting gives families an opportunity to learn about our Title I program, how Title I funds support student learning, and the ways parents can be involved in their child’s education. We will also share important information about parent rights and opportunities for family engagement.

To make attending as convenient as possible, we will offer two meeting times. You may attend whichever works best for your family:

📅 Monday, September 14 at 5:00 PM
📅 Friday, September 18 at 8:30 AM
📍 GJM Library

We hope you can join us for one of these important opportunities to learn more about how we work together to support our GJM students!

Peak Mind — Training Our Attention

Last school year, I began sharing a monthly feature from Dr. Amishi Jha's insightful book, Peak Mind: Find Your Focus, Own Your Attention, Invest 12 Minutes a Day. The purpose of this book study is simple: to give our families a better understanding of how the brain works and provide practical ideas that can help our children become stronger learners.

This year, we are going to continue our journey through Peak Mind until we have made our way through all of the chapters. If you joined us last year, consider this a quick refresher. If you are new to our book study, welcome! There is no need to have read the book yourself—we'll pull out the ideas that are most useful for our students and families.

Chapters 1–3: Attention Is a Skill We Can Strengthen

The first three chapters give us an important message: Our ability to pay attention isn't simply something we either have or don't have. Attention is a powerful system in our brain, it can be disrupted, and—most importantly—it can be strengthened.

Chapter 1: Attention Is Your Superpower

Dr. Jha begins by helping us understand just how important attention is. Our attention determines what information we take in, what we notice, what we remember, and ultimately what we experience. She compares attention to a powerful “flashlight”—we have the ability to direct it toward what matters, but it isn't always easy to keep it there.

For our children, this matters every day. When a student is reading, solving a math problem, listening to directions, or studying for a test, learning depends on where that student's attention is directed.

Chapter 2: …But There's Kryptonite

If attention is our superpower, what gets in the way?

Dr. Jha describes the many things that can weaken or hijack our attention. Stress, competing thoughts, distractions, technology, fatigue, and simply having too much on our minds can make it difficult to stay focused. Sometimes we think a child is being careless, unmotivated, or “just not paying attention,” when the real issue may be that their attention system is overwhelmed.

This is an important reminder for us as adults: we can't always eliminate distractions, but we can help children learn how to recognize distractions and redirect their attention.

Chapter 3: Push-Ups for the Mind

This chapter brings some very good news: the brain can change.

Dr. Jha explains the science of neuroplasticity—the brain's ability to adapt and change through experience and training. Just as our muscles become stronger when we exercise them, our attention can become stronger when we practice using it.

One of the practices Dr. Jha explores is mindfulness. Mindfulness isn't about asking children to sit perfectly still or “clear their minds.” Instead, it is about practicing the ability to notice where our attention has gone and gently bring it back to what we want to focus on.

That is a skill we can practice anywhere.

What Can Parents Try at Home?

One simple takeaway from these first three chapters is to help your child practice redirecting attention rather than simply demanding more attention.

Try this at home:

“Where is your attention right now?”

When your child is studying and becomes distracted, instead of immediately saying, “Pay attention!”, try asking:

“Where did your attention go?”

Then:

“Where do you want your attention to be?”

That small shift helps children begin to recognize that they have some control over where their attention goes.

You can also practice this during everyday activities—reading for a few minutes without a device nearby, listening carefully while someone is talking, noticing what you see and hear on a walk, or taking a few slow breaths before beginning homework.

The goal isn't perfect focus. The goal is building the ability to notice distraction and return to the task.

Our Peak Mind Journey Continues!

We will continue sharing a chapter—or a few related ideas—from Peak Mind in each month's newsletter throughout this school year. My hope is that, by the time we finish the book, our GJM families will have a collection of simple strategies they can use to help their children develop stronger attention, better study habits, and greater ownership of their learning.

As Dr. Jha's work reminds us, our brains are not fixed, and our attention is something we can train. That's an encouraging message for every learner—children and adults alike!

Here's to training our brains and becoming Peak Minds together!

Principal: Monica Waggoner

Asst. Principal: Kristina Zambrano

Main Office: Ashlyn Shugart

Website: https://gjm.inglesideisd.org/o/gjmes
Location: 2720 Big Oak Lane
Phone: 361-776-1683
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GJMElementary