The topic that is on the mind of most people (at least among educators and parents) is what school will look like in the fall. This week, the picture became a little bit clearer with the DPI's release of guidelines for the reopening of schools in the fall. After review and discussion, it's clear that there is a lot of work to do to prepare for September! One takeaway is that it's pretty clear we won't be operating in the same manner as we were in the Fall of 2019...and that we'll need to continue to use parts of our Remote Learning experience in whatever plan we utilize.
Our resource this week provides some lessons learned from the remote learning experience that we'll need to keep in mind as we plan for the Fall.
"6 Strategies for Successful Distance Learning" by Lindsay Mitchell
Reopening School in Fall 2020
Flexibility. Positive Attitude. Flexibility. Positive Attitude. Flexibility. Positive Attitude.
Two mindsets that are going to be critical to the start of our next school year. There are many, many things to work out and process through, and I'm not prepared to share a solid plan as of this writing. However, I like to look at this situation as an opportunity to be special, even better than we were before. We have the staff to deliver excellence for all students at this school. I'll be sharing details in a timely manner as much as I can, and I'm happy to talk or discuss thoughts and questions with anyone...just let me know if you'd like to engage in some dialogue around this topic.
Another Resource
I came across this article and this one, like many, was a realization of something I've done many times without realizing the potential negative impact on some students. This is another illustration of how important our words and body language are to a student's perception.
"One Word to Drop From Your Teacher Vocabulary" by Holly Hagman
Single Start Time
At their last meeting, the School Board passed a motion to have all of our schools have a uniform start time. It is looking like that will be 8:10 or close to it for our Middle and High School, and shortly after that for the Elementary School. This will impact the Master Schedule that we know and have grown comfortable with in some ways...but I'm thinking our Master Schedule won't be utilized as we knew it anyway this fall...Please make note of the new start time. A small group of teachers gathered online to talk through the impacts of the start time on the overall schedule this week, and provided some good suggestions and input for the best way to do it if things were ever to return to how we executed school in the past.
Construction Update
The Middle School continues to undergo a face lift...the progress made is exciting and I'm very, very thankful that we will have more space for our kids this coming fall....that space is going to come in handy for us as we prepare to meet the guidelines necessary to keep everyone as safe and healthy as possible. Enjoy the photos captured today, and see if you can figure out where I was standing when the picture was taken!
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