Dear Students and Parents,
Our first module completed. Activities and clubs starting next week. Back to School Night on Thursday. A return to school on the horizon. Lots to share.
We are proud to recognize the following AP Scholars:
AP Scholar - minimum 3 APs with earned scores of 3 or higher.
Oyin Aderibigbe
Chinmay Arvind
Noa Daryn
Sungho Kim
Varun Krishna
Lucian Phillips
Rohan Roberson
AP Scholar with Honor - minimum of 4 APs with scores of 3 or higher and an average of 3.25 or higher.
Yejune Chang
Seunghyoun Oh
Subeen Song
AP Scholar with Distinction - minimum of 5 APs with scores of 3 or higher and an average of 3.5 or higher.
Arjan Chakravarthy
Lekhana Gogineni
Jae Hyeok Kim
Juyang Kim
Minji Kim
Hye Kyo Lee
Sangjun Lee
Seoyoung Lee
Anya Mall
Tejas Narayan
Seoyoung Ryu
Vihaan Saharia
Younghyun Shin
Leah Tak
Yoobin Yoon
Back to School Night
Our annual Back to School Night takes place Thursday, August 26th. Parents will have the opportunity to attend video conferences in order to meet their children’s teachers. The afternoon will kick off at 4:00 pm with a brief welcome and, then, parents will follow a short-form “day in the life” of their student - don’t worry, you won’t get lost! The schedule for the evening along with all video conference links can be found here. Links will be live on the day of the event.
MAP Testing for Grades 9 and 10
A reminder that the Measure of Academic Progress (MAP) tests will be administered for students in Grade 9 and 10 from August 23-26. Students will receive a calendar invitation to each test and will complete one test each day, attending all other regular classes otherwise. Please remember to help support your child in completing this test by providing a quiet work environment with minimal distractions.
School Bus Transportation
As AISC is getting ready to welcome HS students on campus, we are also ready to roll out the Bus Program from Monday, September 6, for both pick-up and drop-off services.
AISC has protocols in place for school-operated buses in order to ensure the health and safety of students taking our buses.
If you are interested in this service for your child(ren), please send an email to our Transport Supervisor (transportsupervisor@aischennai.org), to learn about the cost, routes, timing and the health-safety protocols.
Clubs and Activities are underway!
After a successful Mela, 28 clubs and activities are ready to kick start operations for the school year 2021-2022. Clubs will meet at least once every two weeks while many also meet every week.This year, students have an option to join a club for one semester only and can choose to join a different club in the next semester. In addition to regular club activities, some clubs have also planned to conduct After School Activities for elementary and middle school students later this year. Every high school student is encouraged to join and commit to 1 or 2 clubs/activities in a year. In hybrid, clubs and activities will adjust meeting times as much as possible to accommodate transit time to and from school
Interested in joining a club/activity? Write to Balajee Ginjapalle, Service Learning Coordinator (gbalajee@aischennai.org).
Full Module Attendance for Module 1 (August 9-20)
Students will be marked for attendance Module 1 (August 9-20) by 4:00 pm on Monday, August 23rd. If your student completed all required elements of the Modules for all of their classes, you will receive no attendance marks. So, no news is good news. If your student did not complete a required module element, your student will be marked “AB” (absent) in PowerSchool (you have been sent new Powerschool logins by IT recently) you and your student will receive an email from the HS office alerting you to this. Students have until the end of that week (August 27 at 4:00 pm) to make sure to attend to that requirement. An alert about an AB is intended to make sure that you and your student knows that they have until the end of the week to resolve the absence by completing the overdue assignments, or the absence will become permanent. A maximum of two (2) absences are permitted, per course, per semester. Earning more than two (2) absences leads to loss of credit for the course. The full virtual/hybrid attendance policy is here.
Updated: Forms required, Testing, and Return to Campus Requirements
Mr. Ryan McFarland, our Director of Student Life and Raptor Safe coordinator, has prepared information for HS students to return to campus. This information is especially important to read and take steps to complete, and is laid out here.
Updated HS Return to Campus Information
As you likely know, the Tamil Nadu government has announced that grades 9-12 are permitted to return to hybrid school starting on September 1, 2021. As Mr. Hoover has shared, we are ready to have students return to campus safely and we will do so in a phased manner.
We have received some of the anticipated Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) that give us information about the form of our return to campus.
This remains the same:
Grade level groups of students will begin their Raptor Safe orientation to campus on Wednesday, September 1st, with 11th graders on campus all day Wednesday, 10th graders on campus all day Thursday September 2nd, and 9th and 12th graders on campus all day Friday, September 3rd
Monday, September 6th, we will begin hybrid learning.
Confirmed:
Based on the SOPs we currently have, we will begin hybrid learning in Mango and Blue (50% strength) cohorts. This allows us to have 50% of the HS on campus, as permitted.
Mango - students with last names beginning with A - K
Blue - students with last names beginning with L - Z
Important Hybrid information on arrival to school and departure from school
Drop-off and pick-up in hybrid
In order to safely and efficiently manage student drop-off/arrival and pick-up/departure, we are continuing our staggered arrival and departure process. Please make sure to arrive at the school during your 10 minute arrival time and approach the school gates for pickup at the scheduled staggered departure time for your student’s grade level.
*If you have more than one student attending school, please use the older student’s grade level time.
Looking ahead: Our facilities staff has been hard at work making sure all classrooms and spaces are ready for students to return to campus. Our school is ready and we can't wait for our phased return to campus to begin.
Stay tuned: We are prepared to respond to any changes to our context as we receive additional SOPs and to continue to prepare for students to return to campus and begin hybrid learning in September.
Return to Campus parent drop-in Question and Answer August 23 and 24
I, along with Director of Student Life Ryan McFarland, will host two drop in Q&A sessions next week to answer questions you might have about the HS’ Return to Campus plan.
They are:
After school on Monday, Aug 23rd from 3:30 to 4:15 pm IST (Zoom link here)
At lunchtime Tuesday, Aug 24th from 11:30 am to 12:15 pm IST (Zoom link here)
Final Reminder: Student Handbook - Review and Signature Pages - Repeat Announcement
The High School Handbook is an important document for all families to reference. You can view a copy of the handbook on our website.
Kindly take some time to review the handbook. We ask that all students and parents sign the final page of the handbook acknowledging an understanding of the contents of the Handbook. This year you can sign the page virtually by clicking here. Please complete your review and submit the signature page by Friday, August 20th.
Repeat Announcement: Family Use of the AISC Libraries
AISC families are now able to request books every week from our libraries using this Google form. Books can be ordered through the form from Friday until Monday at 3:30pm and can be picked up curbside at the ES entrance on Wednesdays between 8:30am - 4:00pm. Bags with the child's name clearly marked on the front will be located inside the white cubbies. Patrons are invited to take the bag that belongs to them without touching any other materials.
In addition, a book drop is positioned curbside at the ES entrance, as well as the main entrance, for returned books. We encourage families to return the books after two weeks, although if a specific title is needed for a longer period, please contact Babs to implement an extension.
Library staff will practice all health and safety protocols while gathering your books. Upon return,
books and the canvas bags that are distributed will be sanitized.
We encourage families to check the ES library catalog or the HS library catalog before requesting specific titles to ensure that they are available. Please let Babs know on
bbarbara@aischennai.org know if you have any questions.
Repeat Announcement: New Families - Save the Date - First Parent Coffee - SBAR
Our first high school virtual parent coffee will take place on Tuesday, August 31st, from 8:45 - 9:45
am. This coffee is aimed to get parents new to high school up to speed on our Standards-Based
Assessment and Reporting (SBAR) system. While returning parents in grades 10 - 12 are welcome
to attend, please note that no new information will be shared.
Sincerely,
Mike Malone
High School Principal
