Video Gallery

8.18.20 Parent Reopening Forum

Go to Video Gallery Added Aug 21, 2020 •

Copy this URL:
Embed code:	<iframe class="edlio-embed-player" type="text/html" width="640" height="360" src="../embed/index20a8.html?v=284277" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> Change dimensions

Go HD

Recording of the live Parent Reopening Forum answering parent submitted questions.

Show Transcript

LOL Alexander Welcome to our reopening. just so everyone is aware we are recording each of these sessions and we will be posting a video of this recording on our website tomorrow so thank you for joining us tonight and for taking time to engage with us around me portent work of safely opening our school for students and staff I work tonight is going to focus on a review of our reopening plan and I'm sure many of you have all 30. A close reading of that plan there's a link that will be in the presentation to that reopening plan we're also going to respond to questions that were submitted in advance of this meeting today and thank you to those family the community members did submit questions our presentation and the questions will be asking are based on those things that people have asked we will also communicate how parents will continue to be updated throughout this. Leading up to our reopening and I how to reinforce that at the heart of all of this work is the notion of safety safety for our students thank you for our staff and that is our primary focus has been our primary focus and Manor primary focus get into all the details I just want to acknowledge that this is a very scary time for all of us none of us have lived through a pandemic like this before and I like you and my parents of children who I had to spend minor college-age but had to send back to school and the concerns of our families are very real and the concerns that you are feeling right now logical things to eat and we acknowledge that this is a challenging time for all of our families as we make decisions as to what's best for our students and so however you're feeling right now I just want to acknowledge that that's okay and our goal for this presentation is really to help you feel as if you have the tools and information you need to make the best choice for your family during a very scary time so the things that are going to run through our our together tonight or going to be safety and partnership our primary focus is the safe return the state reopening for our students and staff and we're going to do that in partnership with each other it's not enough versus that it's the school and our families and the students in our community all working together in Partnership to create the safest conditions if we reopen School we're also in partnership with our regional neighboring school districts as well as the Genesee County Department of Health so safety and partnership will be seeing that you'll hear you're on our time together soda guessing started I just want to make sure that everybody is aware that we have shifted our instructional calendar every year we have for superintendent conference days built-in throughout the year this year superintendent conference date to the week of Labor Day which is traditionally the first week of school so during the week of Labor Day our faculty and staff will be joining together for four days of professional learning and training and planning getting ready or what will be a most interesting and challenging start of the school year and our first day for students is Monday September 14th so we will be posting that amended instructional calendar on our website finish the board approves it following our August 26th board meeting I want to provide a little bit of background on our reopening plan so our reopening plan was created in the lineman with guidance from the New York State education department Governor the CDC and the Department of Health Eagle required along with every other school district in New York state to submit a reopening plan by July 31st we Medigap plans and posted it to our website on July 31st and since that time we have added some layers to our plan because this really is a living document in order to create that plan we put together a real hfboards that consisted of members of our Board of Education or leadership team representatives for teachers and support staff as well as parents and we have some student reviewers as well provided feedback so this is a living and everything that we are sharing right now is as of August 18th this situation is constantly evolving and constantly changing and so we're responding as appropriate send out the dinner plan we're going to start adding appendix pages to our documents and dating all of those just to make sure that we have the latest information available to our families and to our community and just understand that things are constantly changing face on the public health conditions and so we are going to be responsive to that and we are also going to be and continue to be constantly communicating with our families so at this point in time we are reopening using a hybrid model that we shared with all of you and our July 31st plan and then I'll talk a little bit more about and we've also option provided the option of a 100% virtual option do our families who need that I will talk a little bit more about Community feedback related to those options we are starting with a more restrictive model and hopefully moving she will last restricted model face public health conditions I will talk more about what that means as we move through this presentation and I share more information with all of you so this is our reopening plan and I'm sure that you've seen as graphic before but I'll just take you through it so all of our Learners upk room raid 5 in addition to our enl students and our students learn our special classes K12 will be attendance in person all day on Monday Tuesday Thursday and Friday are students in grades 6 through 12 will be attending at a little bit of a different model Oliver Middle School potent on Mondays and Tuesdays for full days and our high school students will attend on Thursdays and Fridays for full days are CTE students to attend BOCES what time for full days on Mondays and Tuesdays the entire district will take a virtual day on Wednesday and we'll talk more about that as a presentation who's forward and so this is the model that we are opening with at this point in time or are real wedding planner when we sifted through the questions that were submitted some major themes emerged and so his presentation is really built on the questions that our community members in our family ask about a reopening plan if you don't hear your question responded to during the course of this presentation I'll also share with you some ways to make sure that you can get your specific question answered so we'll start with some information on health and safety we are committed to creating the safest conditions possible for our students and our staff we will take seriously our responsibilities around screening check protocols cleaning and disinfecting our school made cheating social distance and requiring masks or face coverings as well as following and hygiene standards commitment that we all need to make in partnership with each other in order to keep the safest conditions possible so here are the expectations around screening and health check protocol it is the expectation that all of our Para will take your children's temperature in the morning before they come to school will be introducing an app that families will use in order to report the fact that they have taken temperatures Rose of finalizing plans for how temp Jack will take place either before students get on the bus and definitely before they enter school will be communicating that information in those Logistics to our family all staff and visitors to our school are expected will be required screening and a temperature check before entering the building on any day these are criteria that we take very seriously and again we are in partnership in order to create the safest conditions we have lots of questions about masks and I want to reinforce the notion that I introduced before that were starting with a more restrictive model with that be he said all students and faculty and staff are expected to wear masks at all times I do want to acknowledge that in our reopening plan we talked about students being able to take their masks off when they stood for instruction dance an example of the regular masks break that will take place throughout the day at the teachers discussion and as appropriate so it's really important to keep in mind that everyone will be wearing that throughout the day when we start school again we hope that the public health conditions just enough to allow us to move to a less restrictive model so just as students need to bring sneakers to school they need to bring a map to school of course we will have masks fun and as necessary but the expectation is we are all wearing masks at school so here's something for me that I absolutely need to punctuate with this is the information we have right now on August 18th because this is a question that all of us have what happens if we have symptoms what happens if there's a positive K so let me take you through the guidance is right now and this is guidance based apartments the department of  so if a student has symptoms or staff member they need to stay home from school as of today August 18th Juniper staff need to be symptom-free for 3 days have a doctor's note and a negative coping test in order to return to school again this is about partnership so it's going to be a our families partnering with your family physician and an apartment house around testing we will not be conducting tests ask the other interesting part of this is the notion of Baseline so say for example I'm somebody who has seasonal allergies and I spend every fall coughing and sneezing with red and watery eyes that's my Baseline if for example my is different than it usually is I have another covid-19 symptom that is not like my Baseline then that's when I need to stay home that's when I need to talk to the doctor that's what I need to follow whatever protocol the doctor tells me I have to follow that makes sense to our families in terms of protocols related to quarantine isolation contact racing and other code related matters we are going to be working with our partner the Genesee County Department of Health working together to put those protocols into place and to communicate with families one of the things that we know from the Genesee County Department of Health is that they've told us that the more restrictive we are with things like mask-wearing social distance all the scheduling pieces we haven't played the less impact a positive test will have on our community in terms of our ability to keep school open so it started with a more restrictive model and hopefully you will last restrictive model at the public health conditions change so now I'm some information about teaching and learning and again all of this information hey, question that all of you have submitted so as you'll recall our reopening plan did ask families to choose which option they were going to send their students back to school which option would be their learning environment you can see that 93% of our families have said we're sending our students back according to your hybrid plan the graphic that I just shared with you earlier in this presentation we have some families who are choosing a 100% virtual option and we have other families who are choosing to explore other option we've asked her family to make a commitment for one semester at a time so that we can adequately plan and staff and work create the best possible conditions whether the student is learning in a hybrid model or a 100% virtual model so Dad information sharing with you is the feedback received for our reopening miles in terms of curricular planning our teachers actually since last April have been engaged in the work of developing an essential standards-based curriculum in a distance the work developing their curriculum also engaged in professional learning around how their curricula will be developed will be delivered to student either in-person hybrid or 100% bird that type of planning dial and flexible given the unpredictable public health conditions so that model allows us to move to a 100% virtual model if the public health conditions warrant that it allows us to B104 North Face base or hybrid so that I want to thank all of our teachers for their exceptional work getting us ready to make those changes we also had a question we had several questions about what are virtual Wednesdays all about on Virtual Wednesdays our entire district will be in a virtual model are teachers and staff will be at school offering that model so on Wednesday their teachers will offer Virtual Office hours for mediation groups in addition to assigned face-to-face learning assignment on teachers will also be engaged and planning professional learning and meetings on Wednesdays in addition our buildings and grounds team will be engaged in deep cleaning ever Wednesday in addition to the regular cleaning protocols that happened on a daily basis so it will be a busy day on Wednesdays the other thing that having a virtual Wednesday allows us to do is to have the flexibility to build in more in per sometime while still being in a hybrid model if the public health conditions warrant that we have some questions about supplies and lift so here's some information about that supply list will be posted on website before September 1st elementary students will be notified about who their teacher is on or about September 1st middle school high school schedule for September 1st who did not participate in the locker distribution and we still have items from lockers here at the school or if you're somebody who had materials and supplies in classrooms rather than in lockers please make sure you get in touch with the building principal and they can arrange Ellis Supply the material we got some questions about New York State Testing as of now August 18th New York state is still scheduled to give the 3 3 1/2 to 3/4 science degree in science as well as the Regents exam that may change but regardless of whether or not those State tests are offered by New York State I can guarantee that are curriculum planning provide the experience for students that is standards-aligned and preparing them well for the rigors of those tests regardless of whether those tests happen or not we have some questions about upk I understand and some other districts have communicated with families that you PK could be in Jeopardy for this year we didn't do that type of communication because we understood we understand that funding was an issue but we are committed to our upk Pro we understand its foundational and it's important we did receive word this week at upk funding will start flowing although likely at a reduced rate we still are committed to this program and we will be providing it in terms of Athletics and extracurriculars as of today at the start of the school year we will not be offering extracurriculars or athletic we will be relying on the guidance from the New York State app Association to provide guidance around Athletics at this point the anticipated fall start date is September 21st we of course will communicate to our families and our students when and if we are able to start our extracurriculars so in terms of Technology we did ask some questions on a RI registration form about technology and to see that we ask questions about Wi-Fi access and then if you don't have access to Wi-Fi at home if you do have access to Wi-Fi we also asked some questions about descriptions of internet access and access to devices among the children let me ask questions about MiFi enabled Chromebook so here are a few things about technology we've done some modifications to our smart school play on and that was recently approved by New York those modifications allow us to move not to a one device per family model like we were doing in the spring but actually a one-to-one one device per student will be moving to that model this fall we also know that some families still need Wi-Fi access and we will continue to offer the Chromebook enabled my Wi-Fi enabled Chromebook devices and our guest network will continue to be open in the are exploring other options opening up larger spaces on to provide network access to our family so how can you communicate with us and where can you learn more information our website will remain The Hub of all of our Communication in addition to all that's there right now we will be adding a Public Health Resource section as well as a Technology support section at anytime you can email or call any member of our leadership team or if you have any questions or concerns or specific questions that you need answered early on in the closure we established a questions and Alexander csd.org email address I can guarantee that if you send a question no matter how specific you will get a response from one of our leadership team members and I encourage families to use that email address I'm in addition to the other ways of gathering information from her school district so cupboard in general are reopening plan but I know that there was some more specific question so I'm going to call in some members of our leadership team to share some additional information with you so Chase driver who is there Transportation supervisor if you could join I'm in shape could you tell us more about what Transportation will look like if we reopen how will Social distancing look on buses and will students have to wear masks in the Box that is one person Percy siblings in the same household will be seated together all students must wear masks on a school bus while seated first student will sit in the back of the bus last two weeks and we'll sit towards front that way we don't have anybody getting in anybody's face and the same will hold true in the afternoon The Last Kiss and the first kiss Apple Cinema crap there will be assigned seating in between oil changes in between the Bronx there will be spot cleaning of high-tech areas by the drivers or a bicep tendon after the am proof we will clean the Men's Day okay thank you very much Shea if you could get just a little bit closer to wherever your microphone this could you cut out to little bit at the end what else do you think our families need to know about Transportation before we reopen School everything is necessary and parents know that we are not allowed to carry hand sanitizer on a bus driver will not be Distributing that to every child okay thank you so much for all of that information and for all of your good planning and the Force members who worked alongside of you with that planning so thank you so much I'm just Pixar boots if you could join me and Jim could you tell us about what food service and Syria will look like as we head back to school in the fall is going to be a little bit different food service will look and change a little bit down there as the Student Center will be coming in from three different doors and directions will be able to grab their breakfast in a grab-and-go kind of container and they'll be able to take that back to their classrooms with them or they can have that meal will be provided your lunch will be all so different they don't know students will be eating in the elementary Cafeteria down there as a teacher take attendance they will be taking the selections of what the student like for lunch and I'll be recording that and send back to us in the cafeteria will prepare those meals and then all of those meals will be delivered to the student in their classroom for they will have that funeral in the classroom all the meals will be after free reduced or play prices so all the students who will qualify for free meals will receive them free all of the students who are qualified for reduced meal or receive them at no charge this year due to another grant that we received this year I'll pay students will again pay for their meals as they did in the past you can use the online Parent Portal and use that for payment with the nutrikids system and the my school bucks or you send me checks or cash into school in an envelope marked with your students name and student ID number the high school students will also look a little different but not much different we will be coming through the cafeteria line in the socially distant Manor 6 feet apart as soon as I make that selection they'll go through the cash cashier when they can also buy small cart items at a limited selection and they will then be going to the city in the table agreed so there will be no crossing a bridge so they'll be sitting with people who they've been sitting with sharing the day with we won't be sanitizing the straight lines and everything after each meal service thank you Jim you think there's anything else our families need to know if we had back to school in the fall I'm just to know that we will be sanitizing between the lines will be taking a precaution when we're serving step traffic thank you so much Jim for all of your good work and opening task force members that worked alongside you to get those plans in place thank you Jim so I'm going to ask him with our business official but he also supervises our buildings and grounds crew him I'm wondering if you can tell us about the prepper is that your team have made regarding personal protective equipment PPE as well as cleaning and sanitizing thank you dr. Huber we've purchased a lot of hand sanitizer and disinfectant we went to a green disinfectant that will kill the virus within 2 minutes contact classroom for stamped the cleaning staff during the day that will be going around doing is cleaning door handles most of the things we purchased a large amount of clear plastic Shield social distancing ordered water bottle fillers for the water fountains in the hallways in the elementary in my school we will be spying disposable paper cups water pump we will be closing off the elementary sinks and water fountains that are in the classroom we're going to try to encourage students to wash their hands in the sticks that are just realized the district purchased some high performance microfiber cleaning cards purchase purchasing electrostatic disinfectant with a contact under the desk so they don't get around we've been working very hard to try to make sure that squirrel so much to Tim and to your team if there's anything else our families need to know as we head back to school this fall actually trains the entire staff on that's great so it's good to know that our buildings and grounds to you have been trained and we of course will be training all faculty and staff as we head back to school so thanks to your team and for all of a real big task force members that worked alongside you to get those plans together appreciated I'm going to ask Brian Keating or director of curriculum and instruction to share with us information about how the fully bird model will look for families that shows that model and I think Brian might share with us a little bit about grading as well so essentially if a family were to choose the remote learning option in a lot of ways what phase 3 or what schooling look like from May till the end of school the spring with some tweaks and changes just based on what we've learned that works and doesn't work and will help improve the overall experience that kids did I received as well as making sure that were in compliance with New York state so if family chooses the fully virtual option going to be two different registration. It's going to be before the first match so if you were to say that you watch your children to learn in a fully remote setting that would be a commitment from September through January as we approached January in second semester is blooming in February enrollment. In which family from February 1st through the end of June Solon schools open house here in the district in person the virtual options going to look slightly different for each building awesome the elementary school teachers oldest competency assessment that students have to do as well as any weird experiences that go with it on Monday morning very similar to what happened with phase 3 the work however instead of having service strict deadlines more at the teacher or Friday I just depends on the type of work together provide on it and then there's a built-in opportunities for daily interactions that can be things like flowers or other types of the elementary school and then just make sure that everyone is in compliance with the guidelines for New York State we are also going to ask you to check in on with a virtual model regardless of the grade-level digitally for tenants purposes so for pre-k kindergarten first grade students in classroom called seesaw are kindergarten teen mutant last year it's just a nice simple way for our younger students to be able to access materials online and then are a little bit older students second grade will be using Google Classroom is that'll be for receiving Cheerios as well as he's daily check-in middle school and high school I will be following largely the daily hybrid class schedule so not in terms of moving from Bell to Bell the Bell but they're the schedule of when work is assigned when it's turned back in will revolve around what's happening in the building to try to keep both the virtual suits and suits that are in the building at roughly the same pacing for Middle School students I will have work this disturbing to them Reach course by 7:30 on Friday morning because the middle school students that will be attending will come into the building Monday or Tuesday once your Thursday elementary school will be daily opportunities for office hours for feedback be scheduled by the Middle High School varsity daily attendance High School pretty similar on Friday however in the high school work will be assigned by 7:30 on Wednesday morning that again is to keep chasing the high school students that are going to be in the building will be in the building if there is any Friday I'm in again work with the teachers discretion on a Monday or Tuesday again going to be those daily opportunities for the student teacher and office hours feedback and again will also be very tense check-in tip with you Google Classroom look like the elementary school look larger like a has historically been for the past several years so I guess you three times a year and soon she'll continue to receive their training base four score that we've had in place for a number of years middle and high school look a little bit different that report cards will be also using a 4-point scale but it'll be something roughly along the lines low expectations protein expectations meeting expectations and exceeding expectations and the only thing to keep in mind is if we if something happens in the entire District wasn't having to close down and start Rising the governor shut down in-person classes down the only thing that really switch has just decided to do it just make things consistent throughout the district if that were to happen then Monday will be the interaction between students teachers and then typically on Thursday or Friday that work will be do so that's what the virtual option will look like Ryan thank you so much and thanks for leadership and for all the teachers and administrators who works really hard to make sure that all of these plans are in place for our students on to provide not only the best possible conditions for the safest possible conditions for teaching and learning so thank you very much Ryan we're going to ship now and I'm going to ask our building leaders mr. cath mrs. Whitcomb and I'll tour director of pupil Personnel mrs. Bush to join me and I'm going to ask some questions based on those two I'm by our community members and family so Jake and Shannon could you tell us what a day and a week in the life of a student Alexander will look like in our reopening model as well as in the virtual model so why don't we start with you mr. town and thank you everyone for joining us tonight I hope everyone is doing well is three different models and the model that we're starting with the four days a week which is Monday Tuesday with the Deep sanitation in Virtual Wednesday and then back in attendance Thursday Friday that's kind of a hybrid but that's are full in person version right now it's our lease restrictive model that that we've designed for the students we want the kids back in the buildings trying to find back to what normal is our hybrid model is a little bit different it's a little less restrictive than that we will divide the entire School into half so half of them will attend on Monday Tuesday everyone will be virtual Wednesday and Thursday Friday the other group will come on Thursday Friday we will divide those cohorts as will organize it by household but you know siblings or those family members or Blended families that live together to simplify Logistics on the family son with daycare and things like that how is the fully virtual model in mr. Keating tustana just a bit and it'll be similar to the spring but a heck of a lot better because we've spent a great amount of time providing opportunities for teachers to work together lebert collaboratively plan and align all of those essential questions that stem from the essential standards and key learnings for that grade level in particular subject areas with an emphasis on Ela and math are Target of course has to be at least restrictive that we possibly can and when social distancing parameters in mind when it's combined with square footage that we will be starting with the in first the model of four days per week annotation on Wednesday virtual Wednesdays so what's your tab just to clarify I know that I've been talking about how we're starting out with the most restrictive modeling and that really applies to the health and safety types of things like the mass like the social distancing what I think I'm hearing you say is that in terms of in-person learning we're providing the most in person learning to our youngest Learners upk through 5 and then if the public health conditions ship we might move to something else but more restrictive which is that cohort model that you talked about the hybrid model and then if they just yet again fully virtual would be the most restrictive model is that a good way of describing now characterization of that and the only way we would transition between those models is if we get a guidance from the Department of Health in our medical officials giving us that said advice but our Target right now is to be as least restrictive as possible this is Whitcomb could you share with us what a day or a week in the life of a middle school or high school or it's going to look like I'd be happy to first of all it's nice to have everybody joining us wish you could see you in person for the middle school and high school is a little bit different we have approximately 460 students which is a difficult task on a normal school year so trying to figure out ways to keep students safe and healthy was a challenge to start so we looked yet cohort model which is essentially grouping I'm facing some sort of strategic way was made fairly easy for us when we heard from our regional BOCES Career and Technical Center that all of our Career and Technical Center students needed to attend to their Korean check for four full days on Mondays and Tuesdays so when we look at are eligible 11th and 12th grade students who are participating career and check more than half of those students are participants in that program so we started to look at how could we trade a model that embraced both of those programs are instructional program in the building as well as the instructional program off campus so we were having our high school students in the building on Thursdays and Fridays the natural progression from that was half middle schoolers in the building on Mondays and Mondays and Tuesdays the virtual Wednesday will be office hours as dr. Huber and mr. Taft and mr. Keating all described where that will be a time where none of the teachers in RV I will be live teaching it all so they'll be available to have virtual contact with students and are building a likely be in a pretty scheduled and strategic manner in terms of middle schoolers if you have a middle school student a couple of things that I think Karen really want to know is what what kind of classes will they have what their what will their daily schedule look like on Mondays and Tuesdays they'll be in the building and when they're in the building because middle schoolers tend to have most classes every day anyhow the only ones that really alternate are some of their specials will just have the letter days follow like they normally would so the first week of school they would have their Ada classes periods 1 through 8 and their bday classes. 1 through 8 on Tuesday I need to clarify those our kids are used to having eight instructional. And then nine. Is an extra help. You won't have that nice. Extra help. This year for any of our students but we did create 9:40 minute. We did that to accommodate our middle school lunches we didn't want 190 some odd students having lunch at the same time so we separated out our sixth grade lunch will eat separately 7th grade lunch separately 8th grade lunch separately I'm students will be able to eat lunch in the cafeteria we can accommodate approximately 50 students at our lunch tables right now I'm socially distance out to students for table and then we will have an overflow room this is going to be middle and high school where if we do have students that prefer a smaller setting or maybe a quieter environment your lunch will have alternate locations for the Overflow numbers for those students mr.tux already talked about what that lunch process will look like but middle school students will transition from class to class with their group students like they normally would have in a regular school year we did extend passing times and in between all classes even though our building will have half as many kids in it at one time we thought it was important spread out the passing time so that kids shouldn't have to rush or feel like they have to be in clusters as we'd like them socially distant if possible another question that parents had were about lockers students will have access to their lockers unfortunately because we don't have enough lockers to socially just in students and we don't want to share we don't want middle school students to use one Locker on Monday Tuesday and different high school students use them on Thursday or Friday so we're going to ask our students to live air Locker used to that they use it in the mornings drop off their coasts backpacks those sorts of things if they need to pick up a lunch or lunch money something along those lines at lunch time that's fine and then hopefully the last time they'll go to their locker during the day is at the end of the day we're going to ask students to keep their classroom materials in each classroom they're not going to be prohibited from carrying around maybe a binder that has multiple classes in it or something along those lines or if they need to bring things home for homework but essentially the locker usage going to is going to be very different than what we're used to in the past again we don't want kids congregating and areas where they're going to be in close quarters which if you've been in our hallways during passing times but now those are very close quarters so the Apple student schedule will Encompass everything that they would all of the classes that they would have taken our specials were all are all taking place scissored art music band chorus all of their options are in place we haven't anything from anyone scheduled and in order to do that we had to get creative to figure out how can we accommodate larger class sections where we can't fit all of those students in a classroom safely at one time the creative we came up with is to have those larger section split into two groups so students will be in group a or group b those groups for each class that needed to be split those cohorts will remain the same so that if we have to do conch tracing will know who is in each group and essentially what will happen is if there is a larger class but they are class originally had what state was social studies eighth and had 28 students in it will split that class into two sections for Babe Ruth b they will meet with their social studies a teacher on the first letter day that they have the class and the group b will be in an alternate location hopefully a room nearby or across the hall whenever we could do that we I'd make that accommodation they will be in that other location with a certified teacher and they will be available what will be available as a live stream of the lesson that's happening in the original location on the next Saturday that they the two groups will switch so that every group gets to meet with their teacher lives every other day for their class meeting schedule so that's a creative solution to how we can have as many kids in the building as possible while also keeping kids mostly distance in safes in the classroom that same process will be followed for high school students high school students will follow their normal letter Day schedule like we like I talked about for Middle School we've eliminated no electives we've eliminated nose extra large glasses like you would think of high school band High School chorus we found ways to make it work because we think those experiences and opportunities are important for all of our students to have those of you who are parents know that your kids may feel short changed over the past 6 months and we tried to limit experiences where kids are going to feel that one if we get creative they don't need to the one thing to point out about our high school schedule that's different from what we posed sending our reopening plan is that we had a reopening Middle High School reopening committee meeting and the feedback we got from almost all of those participants is that people really were concerned about that AC and BD a weekly schedule so we heard the concerns they were very valid concerns so we've made some significant changes for that letter day rotation I need everyone who's watching to know that we will provide a calendar or middle school students and high school students that will spell out what every day of the school year should look like if we remain in this hybrid model and what your kids should be focusing on when they're working at home and what they should focus on when they're in the building but the change that is that on Thursdays and Fridays for a high-school week on Thursdays it would be a day and then the following day Friday would be be day then when students are home on Monday and Tuesday Monday would be work for Ada classes Thursday would be work for beading classes we make that distinction based on the feedback that we received from parents and students in the spring who many found it difficult to manage their time to figure out what should I be working on and when that way if I'm Thursday they had a j we want them on the virtual Monday to be working on those eight a assignments independently if they had beat on Friday we want the following Tuesday to be for bday assignment makes a little bit easier for parents and for students we will set some expectations about time limits for some of these assignments we don't want kids on devices all day long but we do need to be sure that the learning progression is a little bit more authentic and we're absolutely able to do that mommy got kids in our buildings two days a week as opposed to all virtual is what we did in the spring I'm sorry I talked a little bit about social distancing in a variety of formats I just want people to be aware of and assured that if your child is a some sort of a specialized program so for example they might be a Middle School Accelerated student a Middle School Accelerated student taking High School courses we worked out all of those details here child will still be able to participate in those experiences so hoping that this brief summary will answer many of the questions that you have and instill some confidence in you that a significant amount of time energy and planning has gone into all of the work that's been done by the entire district and as a parent of two students and Alexander middle and high school I feel very comfortable sending my students to this district and I don't know that that would be the case in another school district thank you so much Janet for all of those details and I was really glad to hear you talk about the specials and how we've been able to figure out how to offer things like band Orchestra chorus is that on and sew along those lines fisher cats can you just share with us a little bit about what I hope will look like in the elementary building and also what will it look like for children to have unstructured time and some playtime in the elementary school in the elementary specials instead of going special other than phys-ed specials will come to the classroom in this simply just to limit the amount of travel around the building by the by the students it's very, when our friends travel from place to place in the building and if they're touching things as they go along in the hallway but also walking in line so it's a little difficult to have seven year olds are 6 year old walking the line that are socially distant so we're going to bring the specials today with the exception of his head and with is that we're going to repurpose our cafeteria because we're not using it for meals this year that will be our auxiliary gym where there's plenty of space to spread out and do some physical activities as well as a regular gymnasium and I'm praying hope wishing for warm weather through the end of October so that we can use the outside as much as possible not only for his visit but also for teachers to create opportunities for that unstructured playtime in recess which is where we could also a stretcher is a little bit as well as get those important mask breaks because masks are are tedious or uncomfortable but we're going to we're going to try to schedule that and make those available weather pain-relieving with outside activities great thank you so much both this is what come in mr. Chad I just want to make sure everybody is aware that after we had our reopening task force on Shannon and Jake are headed Building Des team 15 oz sample T and staff and Karen to really actualize some of our reopening plan and look at the logistics in the at the building level and that work continues so thank you for your leadership and thank you to everyone who worked the network as well so I'm going to ask Kathy Bush or director of pupil Personnel to join me on a cactus and you just share with us a little bit about resource room and consultant teacher what that's going to look like in our backs model which is a hybrid model or in the 100% virtual model and then can you speak to a a bit to how related services will be provided absolutely so since the school closure teachers really have been working very closely with our general education teachers to evaluate the needs of our special education students in general education classroom on and also to make accommodations and modifications that are needed reduced-fat so so depending on the student's needs it could look like additional review videos posted on the Google Classroom modify testing formats on Google meet ears for Digital support teaching or preaching on emailing back and forth between the offer to special education students when your IP has been offered through again in Google classroom with a small group of students died by one of our special special education teachers Elaine some of their academic and requires additional modifications and accommodations uninstall will continue to see some of those things being put in place in regards to related Services again is mr. noted I would really hope that we have a nice warm fall and that are occupational therapist physical therapist and speech therapist in addition to our counselors and get our toes outside is often as pause we have purchased some additional equipment that are helpful to assist with the requirements fit and is asking us to comply with I'm some speech therapist acquire mask where students are able to see the therapist Mouse as they're doing some therapy so we have made several different accommodation really on to make sure that our students are still getting the related services that they that are indicated on their IEP but also providing those Services again outside at any time that those services he provided to allow for those mask breaks some fresh air and some good learning opportunity he's actually really being able to take advantage of our track and playground area indoor outdoor classroom from I'm so hopefully all of those things will continue to be available as long as we have nice weather happy at the idea would be that their bees related Services would be provided in purse but I know that we were able to provide some teletherapy when we were 100% virtual in the spring if families to the virtual option and need related services will we be exploring the option teletherapy with those families sew a pants will closure or therapist actually I'm like others were kind of put in a situation where they need you to learn quickly on our parents have been very Cooperative I'm working very close what are therapists to make sure that they were providing questions that were helpful to our students and also in collaboration and in partnership with parents who were assisting your chilled well they're receiving those therapy so in the event that we need to go full-time virtual we absolutely can move back in that direction but I'll still in the hybrid model if parents are requesting teletherapy because it was it was more effective or it seemed to work better I'm for that child that request will be granted as well that's great so I also think I'm hearing you say that a parent has specific questions about their children they should reach out to be a phone or email is that correct if solutely I would be happy to answer any questions that any parent has fantastic thank you so much Kathy so I hope that everybody who is just joined us tonight has learned more about our reopening plan and understands that our commitment is to be in Partnership to create the state this conditions possible for our students and our staff as we were reopen this fall so everybody is aware we are going to be creating a frequently-asked-questions document based on this webinar and based on the questions that all of you have asked will also be posting a recording of discussion on the time that we spent together tonight as well as the presentation that I shared so I want to thank all of you for your patience for your thoughtfulness for your care of your children and four sticking with us during this very challenging time we're all working hard and partnership to make sure that we can make a safe return to Alexander in the fall thank you everybody have a good evening

Video Gallery

8.18.20 Parent Reopening Forum

Popular Videos