Dear Students and Parents,
Enjoy the long weekend! I hope you get some time to relax and be with family.
A reminder that we will not have class on Tuesday, April 14th, in observance of Tamil New Year.
Helpful Reminders in our Virtual System - Your Help Needed
Please see the graphic below that can be used as a “quick guide” to virtual learning in the high school.
Week Two Feedback and Next Steps
Thanks again to everyone who took the time to give us feedback about our virtual learning program. Based on that feedback the following enhancements were put in place for this past week (as communicated in the kick-off video and email welcome).
All modules included
- A welcome video from the teacher
- A written overview of the week
- Learning activities
- At least one assignment or assessment
- At least one assignment or assessment
- A opportunity for students to reflect on their learning
- A pacing guide with suggested benchmarks for planning the week
- An exit ticket (google sheet or google form) to indicate completion of the module and the time required to complete all tasks
Our feedback survey last Friday yielded fewer submissions. Nonetheless, we have identified some themes to share with the community. Our feedback survey last Friday yielded fewer submissions. Nonetheless, we have identified some es to share with the community.
· Information and content remain easy to access and are generally clear.
· Teachers remain highly accessible via email, chat and office hours for clarification and support. Students seem to prefer chat and email, not office hours.
· The additional flexibility of the enhanced system was appreciated by many.
· The synchronous opportunities helped students stay connected and clarify understanding.
This additional information was shared with the faculty as they plan next week’s modules. We will continue to enhance our virtual learning program weekly and appreciate your feedback and support.
Not Engaged? What to Do
Some students are finding it hard to remain engaged in virtual learning. This is natural. We are about to start Week Four and fatigue has set in. We also know that we have seven weeks ahead of us and, so, engagement is important!
If you (or your teen) is not engaged in virtual school, what can be done?
As a section, we have an intervention plan in place to help support students early on. We monitor PowerSchool usage and contact students who have not been active for 48 hours. Teachers are emailing students who miss an internal (suggested) deadline to check in and see if help is needed. We are making phone calls and having video conferences with students who are reported as absent or are having difficulty accessing online instruction. This should help keep engagement high. Sometimes students just need a word of encouragement or a personal touch to jump-start their thinking and get them back online.
As a family, you can help by having an explicit conversation about expectations in the home. What time are teens expected to get up in the morning? What time should they stop working on the computer in the afternoon or evening? What chores are now a part of their daily “to-do” list and when will these be scheduled? When will family, leisure and well being time take place? This will also help keep engagement high.
Further, teachers, counselors, administrators, and support personnel are only an email away. Ask for help if you feel yourself (or your teen) disengaging from virtual learning.
Finally, one way to keep engaged is to socialize! Don’t hesitate to join any of the meet-ups on the social calendar and to reach out to your friends to do a virtual hangout!
From the School-Wide Counseling Team
This week, our counseling team has shared an article that pertains to helping students—across age—manage fear and anxiety. While this article might not be directly relevant to the COVID-19 situation that we are currently facing, the writer provides a comprehensive picture of what to expect age-by-age around anxiety and offers parents/educators strategies to support kids and adolescents manage their anxiety. If you are interested in learning just about these suggestions, scroll down to the bottom of the article. If you might not have time to read the entire article, we have recapped below the strategies shared in the article:
- Give them plenty of information.
- Meet them where they are.
- Play.
- Be careful not to overreact.
- Let them explore their fear safely.
- Don’t give excessive reassurance.
- Understand the physical signs of fear.
- Something soft and familiar makes the world feel lovelier.
- Be alive to what they are watching on TV or reading in books.
- Remember they’re watching.
- Validate their fears and let them put a word to their fears.
- Acknowledge any brave behavior.
For parents who would like additional resources to tap into in the upcoming long weekend, here is a suggested podcast. In this podcast, grief expert David Kessler and a renowned writer and professor Brené Brown walk the listeners through individual and collective grief, what meaning is, and what finding meaning isn’t. In light of COVID-19, their conversation might be relevant. In fact, it is suggested in this article that the discomforting emotion we might all be experiencing right now is grief. Grief is a challenging subject to talk about and we hope that the podcast and the article shared here would be of a helpful starting point for parents who would like to learn more about grief, processing grief, and finding meaning in grief.
Starting on Monday the 13th, the Athletics and Activities office is challenging families to participate in a game that you can do from your home. Called the GYFT (Get Your Family Together) Challenge, there are 15 different activities that you can earn points doing. Most are mainly offline and intended for you to spend intentional time together. If you're interested, read about the GYFT Challenge here. We'll run it from Monday morning through Sunday night - the 13th through the 19th. Complete this form with your team or family name and be sure to make a copy of this sheet or write down the points that will be earned for each activity. If you want to share your progress on social media, just use the hashtags #GYFTchallenge and #AISCwellbeing.
A Note from Athletics and Activities
Sincerely,
Joelle Basnight
High School Principal
