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Dear Members of the AUSD Community,

Welcome back from the Thanksgiving holiday break. However you celebrated Thanksgiving, I hope you were able to find plenty to be thankful for in this unusual year. The present moment in our lives is difficult for everyone. Many of us are in disbelief that COVID-19 continues its devastation. Particularly its disproportionate impact on special populations, specifically those whose living and working conditions predispose them to worse outcomes. From an education perspective it also impacts certain populations of students disproportionately.

As we now enter the final stage of the first semester, which ends on Thursday, December 17, we are preparing for the second semester. At the same time, we are striving to find new and innovative ways to reach and engage all of our students, and support and serve our families too, many of whom are struggling in ways unimaginable. I am thankful that our mental health professionals, family engagement specialists, student service teams, and others are providing support both directly and indirectly by partnering with other agencies around the city and county to provide resources for our students and their families. This coming Wednesday, December 2, in partnership with Borrego Health, our Family Engagement Office presents a virtual workshop focused on wellness. Topics include food insecurity, medical insurance, dental care, telemedicine, COVID-19 Prevention, and more. Tune in from 4:00 to 5:00 pm on our YouTube channel here. See details on the flyer below in this newsletter.

The black screens that have become common in the virtual classroom serve as a daily reminder that we are living in a dark period in our recent history. For teachers and instructional support providers, the value of seeing students’ faces is an indispensable tool when checking for understanding and keeping students on task. But more importantly, students’ faces provide a window into students' emotional state and subsequently trigger adult responses to connect with them and help them succeed. We can’t force students to be on camera anymore than we can force their engagement in the in-person classroom when they choose to tune out. But our schools and teachers and support providers are persisting through encouragement and experimentation and building trust. Please encourage your children to tune in. Educating students at a distance is a challenge that few teachers and schools believed would have taken us into the second semester. But it's everyone's reality now and we have to accept it and make the most of it.

There are many, many jobs and professions that the pandemic has turned upside down, schooling and parenting among them. But these two "jobs" are the most rewarding of all jobs life has to offer and the impact great teachers/schools and great parents have on children is indisputable. We are all pushed to our limits by the pandemic and keeping a healthy perspective becomes harder with each passing day. But each of our well-being and the well-being of our students is what matters most because the day will soon come when it's all behind us. And when that time comes we will have lots of different work to do, as we begin to address learning loss and the impact of pandemic schooling on our children's present and future. In the meantime, educators and parents alike must simply do the absolute best we can. And when it's not exactly what we had hoped for, we must give ourselves grace.

On behalf of the Board of Education and our entire organization, please continue to keep the questions coming and communicate your needs and challenges to us so that we can better serve our students.

Stay healthy. Stay positive. Be well.

In partnership,

Allan Mucerino