April 3, 2020
Yesterday Governor Reynolds closed schools until April 30. Because of this, we will continue to do enrichments, but are encouraging you to do new material. This still can't be required or graded, but we want to make sure students have the opportunity to learn the material. Please don't try to cover everything you would have covered for the reminder of the year, just pick the items that the students may need to know in the future. Only have 2-3 goals per week. More guidance on this will be coming next week.
At the same time, please start thinking how we will need to start next year. As a former social studies teacher, I know that a student not getting all the content in World History is not going to impact a student in American History. Also not finishing Biology will not impact Chemistry or Physics. However, not finishing Algebra will impact Algebra 2 or not finishing Algebra 2 will impact Pre Calc or College Algebra.
The state is allowing provisions to require kids to do the work and to be able to grade the work. We have decided not to pursue this due to student access, the potential to negatively impact some students, students potentially not doing as well in an online class as they would a live class, etc. We know, even if we require the work, some kids will not do the online classes. Also, not everyone of you feel comfortable with teaching an online class. By the time we got everyone on the same page, we would only have a few weeks of school. As far as final grades go, the DOE has left it up to the local school boards to decide. It would be my preference to go Pass/Fail. Iowa Universities have already said they will accept Pass/Fail grades. The reason to go to a Pass/Fail for me stems from the fact that one quarter of the grade would represent the credit and influence the GPA. I have not looked at every students grades, but it is possible for someone to have an A- at quarter time, but he/she could have gotten it up to an A if we had finished school the normal way. Since we use the 11 point scale for GPA, the 3.667 would potentially hurt the GPA.
I am going to look at into scheduling department meetings next week via Zoom or Google Hangouts. I will probably schedule these in the morning. I did meet with the Math department yesterday to discuss some scheduling for next year and I have met with the CTE teachers twice to work on our CLNA. After next week, I will schedule them every other week. I just want to use this time to stay in touch with you, see if I can help support you in any way, and just to see how you are doing. I think the CTE teachers will tell you it was nice just to see each other and to joke around a little bit while we were getting some work done on our Comprehensive Local Needs Assessment.
I will be checking grades on Seniors. Anyone who is failing or failed third quarter in a class that is needed for graduation will be contacted. They will have the option to do an online class to earn the credit or to come back next school year.
Enjoy your week! Tyler tells me there are only 3 days in the week now, yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
Mark
Assistant Principal's Happenings
I hope everyone is doing well! I just have a couple updates. I finished writing up a few Summative Evaluations and will hopefully finish the rest by next week. Dr. Webner has given the okay to only have two evaluations for those that didn't get the third one in before the school closure. I will be setting up Google Hangouts over the coming weeks with the people on my evaluation schedule to discuss these.
Just to add to the upcoming enrichments, be aware we will need to keep kids with IEP's in mind. They should have as many modifications as we can provide with the online method. I encourage all of you to reach out to the special education teachers to determine modifications that would be appropriate. This will be a new challenge for everyone but I hope you consider it just like you would in the normal classroom.
Lastly, if anyone has concerns please don't hesitate to ask Dr. Iverson or me. The Zoom sessions will help in being able to communicate with everyone starting next week and will be an opportunity to discuss anything that you are concerned about.
My 1-year old and 4-year old have been loving the enrichments we have been doing at home. I hope we get the same enthusiasm from the high schoolers in the coming month!
Just to add to the upcoming enrichments, be aware we will need to keep kids with IEP's in mind. They should have as many modifications as we can provide with the online method. I encourage all of you to reach out to the special education teachers to determine modifications that would be appropriate. This will be a new challenge for everyone but I hope you consider it just like you would in the normal classroom.
Lastly, if anyone has concerns please don't hesitate to ask Dr. Iverson or me. The Zoom sessions will help in being able to communicate with everyone starting next week and will be an opportunity to discuss anything that you are concerned about.
My 1-year old and 4-year old have been loving the enrichments we have been doing at home. I hope we get the same enthusiasm from the high schoolers in the coming month!
Comments
Post a Comment