Notes from Coffee with the Principal
8/26/20
The presentation at this week’s Coffee was about the School Site Council. Elections for parent members are coming soon.
Questions:
When is real instruction going to start? I feel at sea. Charter schools have started already. The plans the district put out are not engaging for kids or we are blocked from the websites they link to. There are no math workbooks.
The Strong Start Plans were developed by the district so that teachers had adequate time to get training, to make sure every family has their technology in order, to plan effectively, and to make sure every family is connecting. While many of our families are set and ready to launch into distance learning, we still have some families who have not logged in yet, and our enrollment is changing a little every day, especially in the lower grades which means teachers have to do a lot of 1:1s to orient families who are just joining us. In a school and district that champions equity, we cannot hit the ground running with only some of our students. Our district serves 50,000 students. Like a big cargo ship, it takes time to turn and follow a course.
The SSPs should have about 4 hours of activities built in, and in week 5 you can expect 3-4 hours of instruction– both synchronous (live) and asynchronous (including work time, pre-recorded or educational apps such as ST Math, RAZ kids, etc.). See the chart below for your grade level.
Minutes required by State of CA
OUSD “live” minutes
OUSD “asynchronous– educational tech or pre-recorded content
Total OUSD instructional minutes
Our math workbooks were delivered to the Santa Fe campus on accident. They have just been delivered to La Cresta. We are working on a plan to distribute.
Can parents help with distributing materials if staff is not able to come to campus?
Right now we are still waiting for all final construction work to finish and then we will be able to have a limited number of volunteers help on campus. We will still need to observe strict social distancing guidelines so that we do not add to any community spread of the virus. Each grade level will organize what materials they need distributed. Parents can help if the distribution happens outside. We will reach out when volunteers are needed. Thank you.