School hours for students in Kindergarten through 3rd grade are 9:15am to 3:35pm.

School hours for students in the Little Lancers PreK program are:

Please see the district’s Transportation page for information about bus transportation for the 2025-26 school year.

Please do not arrive more than 20 minutes before your child’s drop-off or pick-up time. We need to keep traffic on the school campus to a minimum for the safety of all students and staff.

Please be patient and understanding with other drivers. It will take everyone a little while to get used to the drop-off and pick-up routine. For everyone’s safety, do NOT pass other cars, vans, or buses in line at ANY time. Please stay in your car at all times when in line. A staff member will come to your car to assist your child into or out of the car in the drop-off and pick-up areas.

If you need to park for any reason (e.g. your child needs to be walked into school, you need to drop off an item for your child, etc.), only park in the visitor parking spaces under the solar panels. Please do NOT park in the front loop or on any of the driveways.

ALL adults picking up students MUST have a large, yellow “Pick Up Pass” displayed in their car window. For the safety of all students, any adult that doesn’t have a pass will need to come into the school office and show ID in order to pick-up a student. If you did not receive a Pick Up Pass during the Open House, please email Colleen Robichaud at crobichaud@norton.k12.ma.us and let her know that you need a Pick Up Pass for your student(s).

Please do not arrive more than 20 minutes before your child’s drop-off or pick-up time. We need to keep traffic on the school campus to a minimum for the safety of all students and staff.

Please be patient and understanding with other drivers. It will take everyone a little while to get used to the drop-off and pick-up routine. For everyone’s safety, do NOT pass other cars, vans, or buses in line at ANY time.

ALL adults picking up students MUST have a large, yellow “Pick Up Pass” displayed in their car window. For the safety of our students, any adult that doesn’t have a pass will need to come into the school office and show ID in order to pick-up a student. If you did not receive a Pick Up Pass during the Open House, please email Colleen Robichaud at crobichaud@norton.k12.ma.us and let her know that you need a Pick Up Pass for your student(s).

We have changed our school’s master schedule this year for a variety of reasons. No changes were made to our school's start and end times.

There are a number of positive reasons for implementing a new schedule for both students and teachers like uninterrupted time for Morning Meeting, end of the day art/library/music/PE/technology classes getting their full 45 minutes, and available time to help all of our staff prepare for dismissal. We are also working out schedules for PreK classes to have weekly access to PE and PreK, Kindergarten, and 1st grades to have access to Library at least on a bi-weekly basis.

However, there are also some changes that are different from what the JCS schedule has looked like in the past. One of the changes we needed to make was to move to three recess and lunch periods from four recess and lunch periods. Changing to three lunch periods means that some 1st grade classrooms will have recess and lunch with Kindergarten classrooms and some 1st grade classrooms will have recess and lunch with 2nd grade classrooms. It also means that some 2nd grade classrooms will have recess and lunch with 3rd grade classrooms.

Having multiple grade levels together during recess and lunch is not an unusual practice in many elementary schools. My prior school contained grades K-5 and we had K-2 classrooms go to recess and eat lunch together and 3-5 classrooms go to recess and eat lunch together. To ensure that all 1st and 2nd grade students have grade level peers at recess and lunch, NO 1st or 2nd grade classrooms will be going to recess or eating lunch as without at least one other classroom from their grade level. There will be at least two 1st grade classrooms at the same recess and lunch and at least two 2nd grade classrooms at the same recess and lunch.

As with anything new, we know that it will take some time to adjust to these changes. As a staff, we will discuss any potential issues or concerns that we see and make adjustments accordingly.

The NPS Speech and Language Team, including our JCS Speech/Language Pathologists; Liz Norcliffe, Sharon Marble and Denise George, were awarded a $3,000 grant from the Norton Media Center to support students who struggle with verbal communication. This grant allows for the purchase of additional AAC equipment, technology and training, in order to help our students to express themselves, learn, and connect with others. AAC is an abbreviation for Augmentative and Alternative Communication. This grant brings us closer to ensuring every NPS student’s voice is heard!

AAC encompasses all of the ways that someone communicates besides talking. People of all ages can use AAC if they have trouble with speech or language skills. "Augmentative" means to add to someone’s speech. "Alternative" means to be used instead of speech. Some people use AAC throughout their life. Others may use AAC only for a short time, like when they have medical issue or procedure and are unable to talk.

View and subscribe to the JCS Public Events Calendar at https://bit.ly/jcspubliceventscalendar. Click on the "Add to Google Calendar" button in the lower right corner to subscribe to the calendar using your own calendar app. Events from the JCS Public Events Calendar also appear on the JCS website.

First Day of School for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd graders, Tuesday, September 2nd

First Day of School for Kindergarten students, Wednesday, September 3rd

First Day of School for PreK Little Lancers, Thursday, September 4th

SPO Meeting, Thursday, September 11th @6:00PM

Fall Pictures, Friday September 12th

Early Release Day, Wednesday September 24th