Panther Administration Newsletter
April 18 and 19
A message from our Principal
It’s encouraging for me to see so many of our students working so hard in their new (temporary) learning environments. We’ve been seeing so many amazing things and hearing incredibly positive stories from our students, parents and community as we all learn to deal with the reality of our shared experience.
I know that you’re all anxious to know when this is all going to be over. Me too. Remember, we’re all in this together.
We have some insights from the latest modeling that I’m sure you’ve all seen, and I expect that we’ll have an announcement this week regarding the reality of attending in-person school again this school year. So, stay tuned to the daily updates in your email inboxes.
Regardless, the school year is ending very quickly. It’s important that we stay mindful of the fact that we have just a few class lessons left. There are essentially just four more meetings between students and teachers in our Remote Learning framework. And just four more Fridays left to turn in course work. Then, finals. The end is going to be here before we know it.
Pay close attention to announcements about the end of school, summer school, graduation, and the like. Those will come in this newsletter and in the daily emails.
Many of you (underclassmen) are already wondering about your schedules for next year. We are “on track” for our 2020-2021 schedule-build. Students completed their registrations on April 13th. Administrators set sections last week, and we have begun the task of teacher assignments. Next will come the process of schedule runs using the computer algorithms in Infinite Campus. This places students in courses and class periods. We will spend the next two weeks making adjustments as we receive data to assure the highest possible percentage of meeting students’ course requests. For the 2019-20 school year, we were able to meet more than 95% of course requests. We hope to do that well or better again. The bottom line is that students will have access to their 2020-21 schedule on or before May 18th.
It’s been great to see students occasionally while walking, hiking, grocery shopping. I know that our teachers feel the same. We miss seeing our students every day. We can’t wait for this all to be over, so that we can start having the kind of school we want, again.
Until next time.
For Our Panthers
We believe in you! YOU can go the DISTANCE! Stay strong. Dig in. Make yourself PROUD!!
Schedule for APRIL 22-24
Wednesday, April 22nd - Periods 1,3,5,7 - No Teacher Office Hours
Period 1 9:00-10:00
Period 3 10:30-11:30
Lunch 11:30-12:00
Period 5 12:00-1:00
Period 7 1:30-2:30
Thursday, April 23rd - Periods 2,4,6,8 - No Teacher Office Hours
Period 2 9:00-10:00
Period 4 10:30-11:30
Lunch 11:30-12:00
Period 6 12:00-1:00
Period 8 1:30-2:30
Friday, April 24th - Friday Assignments due -
- Teacher Office Hours (all day) - 7:30AM-3:30PM
- lunch 11:30-12:00
SENIORS! Baby Pictures NEEDED!
For our Panther Parents
Guiding Principles for Parents Teaching From Home from Edutopia
CHECK IN EVERY MORNING—AND THROUGHOUT THE DAY
Starting school each morning is about more than laying out the academic benchmarks for the day. Decades of research reveals that a sense of belonging, well-being, and connection is a crucial precursor to learning: If your child is upset or lonely, for example, the research suggests that they simply won’t be as productive as learners.
You might consider implementing an at-home version of a “greeting at the door,” a fun ritual teachers often use at the start of the day, to check in with your child and ask how they’re feeling. Continue the practice throughout the day using lightweight ‘checks-ins’ and vary the question. According to the Institute for Social and Emotional Learning, asking “If you made or used an emoji that best represents your moods right now, what is it?” or “What color or blend of colors best represents how you’re feeling today? Why?" can evoke more nuanced responses than “How are you feeling?”
If your school participates in distance learning, make sure your child regularly engages with other peers through the available technology—or consider snail-mail pen pals to keep your student connected to other young learners.
ALLOW FREQUENT ‘BRAIN BREAKS’
For parents and students, a back-to-back schedule of activities is overwhelming. The good news? Neuroscience supports frequent “brain breaks,” and teachers pepper them throughout the day so students can process the information they’ve learned more effectively. How do brain breaks work? Studies show that brains at rest—also called the ‘default mode’—are still busy processing information below the threshold of consciousness, cleaning up what they’ve learned and moving critical information from short-term memory to long-term storage.
Generally, younger students need more breaks, but students of all ages benefit from them. For young students, research shows brain breaks improve attention span. Breaking lessons into smaller, more manageable chunks helps students focus. Older students need breaks every 20-30 minutes to maintain focus and energy.
FIND A RHYTHM THAT WORKS
When schools announced closings, a plethora of suggested schedules popped up across the internet, but a rigid, static schedule won’t serve a student’s needs. Best-selling author and researcher Daniel Pink says 15 percent of people are “larks,” or morning people, and another 15 percent are “owls,” who perform best later in the day. The rest fall somewhere along the continuum between those poles, so think about customizing schedules to the child—a practice called “differentiation” that teachers use to meet the diverse needs of the learners in their classrooms.
Younger students perform best on analytical tasks earlier in the day, according to research cited by Pink, so parents may want to schedule activities like math in the morning. For the teenage brain, a later start and more sleep can mean better memory and retention. The American Academy of Pediatrics advises starting an adolescent’s school day no earlier than 8:30am.
CONSOLIDATE LEARNING
One misconception about teaching is that its primary function is to help students retain information, but retention is just the first step. Effective learning requires that students retrieve information frequently and then make new meaning of it. This process, called consolidation, is often reinforced in traditional classrooms through reviews and quizzes, or through multi-sensory practices like drawing, composing a song, or building a model about what has recently been learned.
At home, prioritize opportunities to engage in active learning through discussion, writing, or producing art, over more passive practices such as re-reading or rote note-taking. Learning requires repeated, active manipulation of the materials being learned.
Finally, many studies reveal that teaching what you’ve learned to someone else—to a parent or to another sibling—is also a highly effective way to consolidate learning and make it stick. It’s called the protege effect, and it works because teaching something requires that you master all the nuances of the topic.
ENCOURAGE PRODUCTIVE STRUGGLE
Encourage kids to engage in productive struggle by giving them difficult assignments and praising them for their persistence. Research shows that when students solve problems that are challenging, but still within their abilities, they deepen their learning. Allow students to wrestle with problems before intervening.
When work is completed, try to avoid praising your child for “being smart;” the studies show that praising a child for inherent qualities tends to make them risk-averse and discourages trying new or challenging things. You want your kids to continue to push themselves, and praising hard work is more effective for building endurance and tenacity.