For me, this week has brought with it the pace that I'm accustomed to working while school is in session. While preparation certainly has been happening each day throughout the summer, the calendar turning to August somehow has a way to shed a little bit of urgency to the planning process. With that being said, thank you for all you have done to help in our 20-21 school year preparations. Lots to share this week!
20-21 School Preparation Communications
We all understand that this coming school year will be different than we are accustomed. With that being said, communicating the things that will be different with all stakeholders becomes so crucial. This week we continued the communication with our families and students. Communications are linked below. This is just the beginning, as we will be sending weekly communication home throughout August...topics will include: hygiene, proper face-covering use procedures, typical school day, building renovations, etc. If you are interested in creating or sharing any other resources (videos, handouts, etc), on any other topic you feel is important, just let me know.
Family Communication 8/4/2020 (video link embedded in letter)
Resources of the Week
The first resource is a Google Classroom tutorial. This is a video shared by a teacher that shows how to set up and utilize Google Classroom effectively and efficiently. Even though I feel pretty comfortable using Google Classroom, I learned some helpful tips from this video.
"How to Use Google Classroom for Remote Teaching" - New EdTech Classroom
Many questions from, well, basically everyone, center around protocols we'll use to determine whether someone needs to stay home, for how long, etc. if they have been around someone that is/was sick or experiencing symptoms. We will be working closely with our health department with these issues, and the WI Department of Health Services has provided guidance linked below. We certainly will be spending time in the coming weeks on these topics so everyone is on the same page. Below is one resource that I thought explained the recommendations to follow.
https://dpi.wi.gov/sites/
DPI and DHS has shared that more guidance for schools to use around topics like, "how do schools determine if a school should close?" will be sent out for us next week sometime.
Universal Design for Learning (UDL)
Many of you have taken classes or studied UDL. Basically the philosophy of UDL centers around being clear with Learning Targets/Objectives for students, and being flexible with how students access the learning and ultimately with the way they share their learning/understanding. With the online environment that we will be working in this coming school year, the principles of UDL become more important to consider in planning our lessons. Click on the link below to learn more...
A short video (2.5 minutes)...aimed at college educators, but key principles are key for all educators
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGQ_7K35ysA
Floating Inservice Days
Please communicate with me what you are planning for your 3 floating in-service days. I may be able to facilitate a time for you to get into your classroom space sooner than August 24th. We'll just have to work to arrange it. Also, I'll be looking to schedule some time to meet with each teacher for a bit to plan for the coming school year, set goals, and talk through the plan.
Construction Update
The work continues to move along. The big project around campus this week was the resurfacing of the parking lot. A lot of progress was made, but we still anticipate the parking lot being closed for over a week or so yet. If you visit either the MS or HS building, you'll have to park on the street. Things are starting to take shape a little more each day.
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