Bethel Springs Elementary School
April 13, 2020
Bethel Springs Pride!
Our BSES Spirit Unites Us Always!
Latest Communication from Dr. Bertrando (in case you missed the e-mail)
Good Morning,
I hope everyone is doing okay and staying healthy. Even though we've had a few days to digest the news that schools will not open this academic year, if you’re like me, it’s still hard to believe. Nevertheless, one of the few positive outcomes of the decision is that we can now start long-term planning for the remainder of the virtual learning school year. Over the next few weeks, we will provide a revised instructional calendar with specific dates for the end of the school year for seniors and underclassmen, graduation plans, course selection information, details about how and when we will open schools for faculty, staff, and students to retrieve their personal items, and a multitude of other issues that I know are important to all members of our school community. As you know many of our plans have to comply with health regulations and directives from the Governor, so I ask for your patience and cooperation in advance.
For this week, I wanted to share information on the results of the parent survey as we continue to refine our virtual learning implementation. Also, I’ve included this week’s instructional calendar, the updated parent FAQs, and a reminder about the GV-CTC and Mini-Thon donations.
Results of the Parent Survey
Thank you to the approximately 800 parents who responded to last week’s survey. I realize that the last thing parents need right now is to spend more time online, but please know that we not only appreciate your efforts, but also your feedback, which is a vital component in assessing our virtual learning program. Along with parents, we have surveyed our teachers and will soon send out a high school student survey–please encourage your children to take it! It’s important to remember that we are just two weeks into of our new delivery model, so making adjustments based on the feedback of teachers, students, and parents is paramount!
The first aspect of the survey that we observed was that respondents were spread nicely amongst the grade levels. This spread gives us a great holistic perspective of parents’ perceptions.
One of our greatest concerns moving to an online delivery model was workload. 65% of our parents felt that what was assigned was “just right” while 24% felt it was too much. 11% of parents thought that there was not enough work assigned. 84 respondents chose the other option and provided a range of comments that our team has gone through to get more nuanced information.
Like workload, we were also concerned with how the learning was paced for our students. Thus far 77% of the parents felt that the pacing of the work was “manageable.” 14% that it was paced too quickly while 5% thought it was paced too slowly. As was the case in the workload questions, some parents–approximately 55–chose the “other” option to provide written feedback.
Overall, we were pleased with the results of the survey, but we understand that we will need to adjust and improve on an ongoing basis. For example, parents saw communication, the organization of assignments, and the clarity of directions for assignments as overall strengths, but within the positive feedback there are definitely areas of growth that we are sharing with our administrators and teachers. These areas included parents' frustration with Seesaw and Schoology. They feel that it should be easier to navigate and more reliable. Another area of critical feedback was that parents want their students' virtual learning to include more "live" classes through Zoom.
Anecdotally, we know that parents are feeling a great deal of pressure and anxiety overseeing their children’s learning. This feeling is especially pervasive at the elementary level as children have less independence with their learning and require more supervision as they access technology. Perhaps most important for all of us is the social isolation of our children. Although I don’t think anyone has a great solution for this issue, our teachers continue to brainstorm and create ways to connect students virtually so that they can interact with their friends and teachers.
Again, we will take all of this feedback and make adjustments, refine our delivery methods, and create a virtual learning program that aligns with students' needs.
Instructional Calendar
As I stated in previous messages, we will continue to provide “breaks” in the calendar so that students can regroup, catch-up, and adjust to fully online learning. It will also be an opportunity for our teachers to plan and participate in professional learning. I will send the remainder of April’s calendar either later this week or early next week. We do plan to maintain Fridays as an embedded professional learning and planning day for teachers and a catch up day for students.
FAQs for Parents and Student
We continue to update information for parents and students. Perhaps the best resource to utilize when you have questions is our FAQ document. You can access it by clicking here
Mini-Thon and GV-CTC
Through the efforts of our amazing school community, the GV-CTC has raised over $18,500. As the closures continue, more and more of our families will need our support, so we still need donations. If you would like to participate, we ask that you use the GVCTC Venmo account: @GVCTC. If you are asked, the 4 digit code is 3706. Jennifer Tront, GV-CTC Treasurer, owns the account, so you will see her name appear. If you know anyone in our community who needs assistance, please have them complete this updated link (Food Services Assistance) and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible.
I would like to share this message from GVHS Madelynn Lederer:
Thank you to everyone who has contributed to Mini-THON. Your donations ensure that families with a child battling pediatric cancer at Penn State Children's Hospital never see a bill for their child's treatment. Please click here to donate, and thank you for your support! Please click on their names and take two minutes to watch these videos from two of our seniors, Kristin Deaver and Vikas Rana, who will explain more about why your support is important.
Have a great week!
Dr. Marc Bertrando, Superintendent
Online Learning: A Total Community Effort at BSES!
We thank you for your patient assistance with our online learning efforts! We have carefully examined recent survey feedback from parents. Dr. Bertrando summarized important points of the survey in his most recent communication. We will continue to refine our instruction to make it more manageable for students and parents.
We were saddened by the news that our schools will be closed for the remainder of the year. We know the burden this places on families. We wish this could be different and that our kids could return to us, but we need to embrace our new normal and do the best that we can.
We absolutely realize how fortunate we are to have our very capable and supportive parents.
While our situation is less than ideal, we have experienced a level of support that few schools enjoy! This is no surprise to us as BSES parents have always been wonderful in this way!
We are so proud of our students for working with their teachers to engage in this new learning format. They have been flexible and creative right along with us! It is encouraging to see their personalties, their humor, and their resilience shine through their online work!
Our teachers are amazing! The public may perceive that our current circumstances would result in an easier situation for our teachers. We can assure you that it is quite the opposite. Our teachers have been working tirelessly to provide their students with the best instruction in an unfamiliar format, a format not wholly suited to younger learners. Teachers are doing this difficult work while also deeply feeling the loss of the ability to be with their students. We are proud of our BSES teachers!
We thank all members of the BSES community for stepping up and working together. This is the new normal, but not the forever normal. We will get through this together!
Take care,
Mr. Piasecki and Mrs. Allen
Current Schedule for On-line Learning
Next Due Date for Online Learning: On April 17th the work that was assigned for the week of 4/6 to 4/9 will be due.
Weekly Attendance Forms
Thank you for completing the attendance form for the week of 4/6 to 4/9 that was emailed last evening. A student in grades K-5 will be considered present when a completed parental verification of attendance is received. The form will be emailed on a weekly basis to parents. The verification form includes a space for you to indicate a reason for missed days of “school.
The next form will be emailed to you on Monday, April 20th to confirm attendance for the week of April 13th to April 16th (Friday, April 17th is an in-service day for teachers). Thank you for your assistance!
Shrek, Jr.
Unfortunately, Shrek will not be performed this year. I have spoken with Mr. Cashell and Mrs. Allen and we have decided to make Shrek our play next year! We will allow any current 4th graders in the play to retain their current roles, if they wish. If they would like to try out for a different available role, they may do so at auditions next year, along with any other 4th and 5th grade students who wish to try out for the play. As always, we will make sure all students who audition have a part in the play.
I am sorry that our current 5th graders will not have the opportunity to perform in Shrek, but, fortunately, they will have a number of theatrical opportunities as they continue into middle school and high school in Garnet Valley.
With the work that has already been done, we should be well-situated for the play next year.
We thank Mr. Cashell, our parent volunteers, and our students for all of their efforts!
Technology Assistance for Students and Parents
Q. If I have a technical problem or question, who should I contact?
For all technical problems or questions, click (HERE) to fill out the tech support form. A member of our tech team will contact you after you submit the form.
April Fitness Challenge from Mrs. McCusker and Mr. Custer
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wYzdbULBWDCrwTGCDOspkIZlppULwC61/view?usp=sharing