Issaquah School District E-news
August 6, 2020
Update on Remote Learning Student Schedules
Dear ISD Families,
Over the past few months and in preparation for the 2020-2021 school year, district leadership and our instructional, scheduling and safety work groups have been working to develop a robust and engaging online education experience for students. To that end, we can assure you that teaching and learning will look different this September than it did during last spring’s emergency remote learning. In collaboration with the Issaquah Education Association (IEA), we are excited to share with you what all students and families can expect this school year during remote learning.
- Teachers will teach and connect with their scheduled classes daily
- Teachers will deliver live instruction of essential learnings
- Teachers will deliver asynchronous activities for students to apply their learning, which could include activities pre-recorded by the teacher or outside learning resources
- Students will be expected to attend class and teachers will take attendance
- Students will be provided weekly Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) lessons
- Students will follow a consistent school day schedule five days per week and it will include specialists (elementary) and electives (middle and high)
- Teachers will use designated learning management systems (LMS) including Clever, Seesaw and Microsoft Teams (elementary) or Canvas (middle and high)
- Technology will be provided to meet the needs of students and staff
- Teachers will have daily built-in opportunities to reach out to individual students/families to support student learning
- Teachers will be provided ongoing professional development to support the delivery of remote education
The first step to ensuring that we better serve students is crafting schedules that support the commitments above. Together with IEA and based on input from work groups and community, we have created daily schedules for elementary, middle and high school.
Elementary
The sample schedules below illustrate the start/stop times of the school day, in addition to the variety of learning opportunities throughout the week. Specific aspects of your child’s individual daily schedule may look different. Teachers will share their class schedules with families prior to the first day of school.
A few highlights of the elementary schedule include:
- Live whole class experiences/meetings to start and end each day
- Daily social emotional learning and community building activities
- Regular PE, Music and Library specialist time
- Opportunities for students to meet with other support teachers/staff (ex. SAGE, ELL, Title, Counselor, Special Education Teacher, etc.)
- Recommended activities to promote physical, social and emotional well-being
Middle and High School
Aside from the robust opportunities the middle and high school schedules provide all students, additional benefits include:
- A balance between screen time and independent off-line work each class period
- Weekly Social and Emotional Learning lessons
- Intentional scheduling to meet the required high school credit accrual
- Alignment (as much as possible) to the typical school schedule
Please note: Gibson Ek High School will continue to follow an innovative and flexible schedule that focuses on personalized, real world, and project-based learning.
While I recognize there are still many questions to be answered and details to share, I felt it was important to share these schedules and commitments with you as soon as possible. I will continue to keep you informed as plans and details develop. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Superintendent Ron Thiele