This introduction is a compilation of student letters. Students collaborated to combine information they felt described our school best.
Our School Logo with motto: Integrity, Character, Scholarship, Community
We live in the Central Valley of California, an agricultural area. The state capital is nearby. In 2013 the population of our town was 161,000.
Our school has nearly 1,400 students, but we are grouped into teams, so we get to know the kids in our classes pretty well. Our school year begins in the middle of August and ends at the end of May. School starts at 8:15 and ends at 2:47 p.m. However, on Wednesdays, we start at 9:15 a.m. because of teacher meetings. Most Wednesdays, we have an advocacy class, where we talk about serious subjects like bullying, drugs, and our grades. Sometimes we have assemblies. In assemblies, we usually have a motivational speaker or dodge ball/basketball tournaments between students and teachers. Our school follows a block schedule. That means we have four classes every day. Each class is 90 minutes long. We take math, bridge (a combined reading and math class), social science (history), English, physical education, science, and electives. We chose our electives before we started school. In addition to classes, the activities we have a chance to interact with are sports, clubs, playing a musical instrument, and helping others by doing community service projects.
What is your school like?
I look forward to hearing more about your school!
Hi my name is Aleya. My school day starts at 8:15am and ends at 2:47pm. On Wednesdays I have a late start day, my school starts at 9:15am instead of 8:15am. I still end school at 2:47pm. I have four periods each day. There are four terms in a school year. My favorite subject is P.E. After school I like hanging out with friends and going to cheer practice. What do you like to do after school?
This is a great school for [students] to be more educated in [the] many subjects that we have. There are many interesting class field trips such as the Exploritorium, Disneyland, Country Club Lanes, and a UC Davis campus tour. Also I am an Aggies 8 in Toby Johnson Middle School. I hope your school is pretty nice, too.
This school is very nice.
I did not know this school has nearly 1,400 students. Thank you for telling us that and informing people about our four period block schedule. What are the different teams at this school?
Shaina, This year we have teams called Hornets, Tigers, and Aggies. They are named after the mascots of some colleges in California. A few years ago, we also had a team called The Bears, named for the California Berkeley Bears. Since the population at our school declined, we consolidated to only three teams.
Thank you for writing this. Now I know more about my school. I was surprised to learn that the school has about 1,400 students. That’s a lot of kids! I didn’t know that we had late start because of teacher meetings. Why do we have electives?
Kate, Elective classes are a great way to explore many different topics and skills outside of your core curriculum. You may find that you enjoy one class, let’s say art, more than another. We hope that you will continue to practice and pursue the kinds of talents you find that you have. Enjoy your electives classes!
Thank you for sharing about Toby Johnson. In this blog I learned that school starts at 8:15, you can choose an elective, and there is a late start where you can come to school at 9:15. This helps me understand about the school.
Thank you for the helpful information. This could be helpful for 7th graders. One question I have is what teams are there? I learned that there are about 1400 students that attend our school.
Kaitlyn,
Currently, we have Tigers, Bears, Hornets, and Aggies. Those team names correspond to California colleges.
Thank you for writing about this! I enjoyed learning more about Toby Johnson, and now know what a block schedule is. How many teams are there, and how many students are there per team?
Thank you for posting this! I learned that we have at least 1,400 students attending our school. But one thing I question is why did the school hours change for us?
Lauren, You’re right. School hours have changed a bit over time. Sometimes it was to five more time during passing periods. In our current online learning environment, our hours have changed greatly. It would be great if you could write a blog post explaining our new schedule and how it works for us during the pandemic.