“Kids are always learning. What they are learning right now is how adults respond.” – Josh Starr
I want to give a shout out to Lori & Shahayla pictured below along with Brad & Tim for all their hard work these past few days. They put in a lot of elbow grease to clean the classrooms, lockers, chairs, desks, etc. I am so appreciative of their hard work!
The scene in the office is shown below. This is going to be difficult to get used to, but I guess I will have some time to process before we have a lot of people coming through the office anytime soon. I am wondering how the new bullet-proof glass holds up to viruses…(sorry isolation lowers the standard for humor!) I’ve retreated to the book room for my temporary office since power drills and saws are not very conducive to conference calls or WebEx meetings.
So I know you have lots of questions (and so do I). I thought I would reach out with what I can share at the moment, which I must be honest does not feel like much. As you probably already saw Governor Brown extended our closure until the end of April. So that changes things dramatically.
Will we make up the days? I don’t know yet.
Will the rest of the year be called off? I don’t know yet.
Will we shift to distance learning? Most likely.
What will distance learning look like? That’s for us to determine. I think the most valuable question for us to ponder is the following; “How do we want to maintain our community connection during this difficult time and what do we want that to look like with the current restrictions on socializing?”
When do we start distance learning? Unofficially, I believe we will start on April 1st with students…and no, this is not an April fool’s joke.
What about internet access for all families? Solutions are in the works.
What about Kinder and 1st grade without iPads? I don’t have a good concise answer for this question just yet.
What about the All School Storyline? As you may have already seen from Alicia’s email, this will be postponed to the Fall.
When can we come back to the building? Your first official day back still remains Monday 3/30. This week’s days are being treated similarly to snow-day closures, so anytime you put in this week would be considered voluntary. We also need to adhere to the Governor’s directives of keeping group gatherings small.
What about SBAC testing? As of today, the requirement still stands, so I will assume we still need to complete this, but I am fully aware that could change at any moment.
What about the variety show, other events and 5th-grade promotion? I think it’s safe to say these will need to look very different in order to comply with restrictions on gatherings.
How will we communicate if we can’t meet in groups? WebEx – it uses your devices Facetime app along with other tools. It takes a little getting used to, but it’s a powerful tool. Look for invitations to join WebEx meetings from me in the near future. We’ve been practicing with it as an admin team and I think you will find it pretty darn user-friendly. If you receive invitations from me in the next couple of days feel free to join and practice with the tool. These will just be low pressure, low expectations experiences so don’t join if you are already busy.
We can use this tool with each other and with students (it’s on their iPads).
I know there are more questions, so feel free to fire them my way. I will continue to restrict my communication as directed so that the most current information comes from our district office, but I feel mostly safe with the answers provided above.
I’ll leave you with the following closing thoughts;
- Read the quote above often as a good reminder.
- In the words of Matt Damon, “We are going to science the sh– out of this situation!”
- There are a lot (too many) resources filling up our inboxes in an attempt to give us resources to deal with this situation. Linked below is a nice article to help us wrap our heads around what’s coming.
https://www.edutopia.org/article/what-teachers-china-have-learned-past-month
We can do this!