Dear SWS Elementary Families,
We hope you are all well and enjoying as safe and restful a summer as possible. As we prepare for an unpredictable Fall, we want to communicate with you all our multiple contingency plans for the upcoming school year. Please note that we cannot share final plans at this time, as conditions and government mandates are changing rapidly and constantly, but we anticipate announcing our final plans, following local and state guidelines, by the end of this month. Even so, families should understand that any decisions about openings could change based on local conditions up through the first day of school on August 17th. Regardless of format, we are committed to providing a positive, rigorous, and meaningful curriculum for our Jaguares in the safest possible environment, taking into account our students’ social and emotional development in addition to their academic growth.
Here are the three options for which we are currently planning:
- Open on-campus: As of today, we fully anticipate opening on Monday, August 17th. Families will receive a COVID-19 Addendum (attached for your review) detailing all policies and health accommodations to be made for on-campus instruction. Please note that these policies may change between now and the first day of school based on updated recommendations from the CDC and local and state health department. Adjustments will be made to accommodate recommended class sizes, though we anticipate that rosters will shift and change throughout the Summer more than is typical for us. On-campus Summer and Kinder-Readiness Camps have given our administration and staff a chance to implement and refine health mitigation measures, and we are confident that those measures could be implemented successfully for our entire community. If we open on-campus, we do not anticipate having the staff available to offer virtual options by family request.
- Open via hybrid model: While this would be the most challenging to implement for our language-immersion, project-based learning program, we would be prepared to implement a hybrid model to limit staff and student presence on campus, if so dictated by local and/or state mandates. This model would be an option if we were not otherwise able to meet health distancing guidelines on our own campus; again, we do not anticipate having the faculty available to offer families the choice of on-campus or hybrid. The hybrid model we would follow would depend on our total student registration. We recognize that, like full virtual learning, hybrid models place heavy logistical demands on families as well as on staff, but options currently under consideration by smaller schools like ours include:
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- Alternating on-campus attendance by day with virtual instruction on home days: K-2 on campus MWF, 3-5 TTh
- Alternating on-campus attendance by week with virtual instruction on home weeks: K-1 on campus odd# weeks, 3-5 even# weeks
- Alternative on-campus attendance by grade level with full virtual instruction for those at home: K-2 on-campus, 3-5 virtual
- Alternative school schedule, with core subjects on-campus and Specials online
- On-campus instruction (weeks #1-3) followed by scheduled transition to hybrid
- Open virtually: We are also prepared to open and operate virtually through our secure Microsoft Office Teams platform. The online instruction this Spring helped our team and our students adjust to this format and, at year’s end, reflect on our successes and areas of growth; our summer training will include teacher professional development around best practices for virtual instruction. Factors under review include social and emotional development, developmentally appropriate class length, high quality instruction, individual and small group schedules, and authentic assessment. As noted in the COVID-19 Addendum, all SWS families should be prepared to have to transition to remote learning with little notice. We will also ask all families to review a virtual learning agreement. Our Technology Guidelines for 2020-2021 are attached for your review.
We appreciate your patience and support throughout these unprecedented times. Nursery and Preschool families will receive updated information from their campuses by July 15. We too look forward to sharing more specific information as the situation develops. A special shout-out to the members of the 2020-2021 Parent Advisory Committee for their support in reviewing and collaborating on these options.
We are optimistic and encouraged by the resilience and enthusiasm of our students, our families, and our staff, and we look forward to seeing you all soon!
Gracias,
Alexandra