Staff Memo
Sunday, April 5, 2020
End of School Week 3 of Covid 19 Shutdown
Dear Staff,
I hope that you all found some mental and physical rest this weekend. This is very stressful. Self care is important. I am not very good at it myself but I am trying to get better.
By now you may have seen that Broward County has come out and stated that they will not return to regular school this year. I would suspect that Dade County is not far behind,so stay tuned. I wish Carvallo (or the Governor) would just call it already. So, with that knowledge (or at least expectation) we go forward and strive to do the very best that we can for our students.
You all have been doing a great job of getting out content and have used a variety of materials to teach concepts. However, at this point EACH one of you needs to begin scheduling mini-lessons face to face with students. I think that each of you have used or played around with zoom to some degree. It is not perfect and it is not without problems, but at this moment that is what seems to work best. As long as you have the setup correct (more info below), it can be safe. I am also looking into using googlemeet but first I need to make changes in our Gsuite settings. However, if we can get that working, the students in 2nd through 8th grade will be able to "face-time" with you without having to go through a 3rd party like zoom. Stay tuned.
To be clear, the most important thing that we can do during this horrific time is to continue to communicate, show grace under pressure and stay in relationship with our students and with their parents. I recently sent all of our parents and students a brief survey and I am going through the responses one by one. It seems that a majority of our parents and students feel well connected and that is great. However, about 20% feel somewhat connected and about 10% do not feel connected at all. This needs to be a focus so that no one feels that way, or least we can say that we did everything possible to remedy it.
I am doing everything I can do at my level. We are keeping the office open at this time with limited hours and with a limited staff. We are continuing to provide lunch. I have made myself available to all parents via phone and email at all hours. I have assigned some of our classroom aides to various classrooms to be an additional point of contact. We are installing a locked drop-box in the front of the school for parents to drop off work at any time. We are maintaining an active presence on our social media (and I encourage you to as well if you have a class page). I am open to suggestions of other things that we can do so reach out if you have anything on your heart.
A large part of the success or failure of this will greatly depend on the classroom teachers and their servant attitudes and willingness to do everything necessary to maintain the relationships and reach the children. If they aren't coming to you (figuratively speaking), then you must come to them. If they aren't calling you, then call them. If they aren't logging in, find out why. If they aren't doing any work, find out why. We are very happy "in the office" to help you track down missing kids and parents, but please, don't ask us to do that until you have tried everything yourself.
This Friday, we will observe Good Friday and we will observe Easter Monday. There should be NO WORK scheduled for these two days. It will give kids a chance to catch up and if they don't need to, great. Everyone needs a break.
There is a lot of discussion going on in the state and within the Lutheran school system about grades. Our school is no different than any other school. We are continuing to educate the children because that is what we are called to do and paid to do. It has nothing to do with grades at this point so please do not focus on the grades. Some have asked about summer school and summer camp. I have no idea at this point what will happen with summer school (or summer camp for that matter- it is too soon to predict). It is about the learning only now.
I know that we can count on all of our teachers and staff to continue to uplift our children, their families and our school. We have the best team anywhere. Hang in there, be strong and keep on keeping on. Pray for and with your students and each other.
With much love and admiration,
Sherry