Monday, November 23, 2020

WHS Staff News - Week of 11/23/20


First, I want to wish everyone a happy and safe Thanksgiving! I am so grateful for all of you and how hard you have been working the past three months. We all know this is not easy. Take a break this upcoming long weekend from school work, as best you can. It’s important we take care of ourselves and the people around us.

I received 27 responses from the concurrent teaching survey and everyone of them had a yes answer to using concurrent teaching. I appreciate the feedback on the pros/cons and think we have made great strides in finding ways to make this work. Based on talking with teachers around the building and the feedback I received from the survey, starting Monday, 11/30, concurrent teaching will be required for all classes. Before you react, this means a few things - nothing really major.

Concurrent teaching will help you with planning and workload!

The number of students who have opted for full-time remote learning keeps growing every day. 

A big reason for this shift is student accountability. This will give students structure by having them log in for each class and more importantly, streamline class attendance. With this move, students will no longer have the option of checking themselves in via Genesis. We will turn that feature off. Teachers will be expected to take attendance via Meet each period for all students in every class. This honestly should make it easier for you because you control it. No more are they virtual, FT remote, etc. If a students is on the Meet they are present - if not, they are absent. The automatic Google Meet attendance report seems to be working well from what I have heard and can be used for attendance verification.

For the hundredth time, concurrent teaching does not mean teaching online for the entire period. Ideas …. get the class started with a short lesson, have students present projects, have students work in groups, conference with individual students, use breakout rooms, etc. These are all things I have seen used by our teachers that are working really well.  If anyone needs help or wants to brainstorm ideas, Dianna, Mike, Susie or I are more than happy to sit and talk with you. 

I will put something out to the students and parents before Wednesday so they know what to expect for next week. 

No Homework Break
There should be no homework assigned over the break. This will apply to the holiday brake as well.

Referendum
As you saw last week, the BOE is moving forward with the referendum, which will go out to the voters on January 26. The project is 90% focused on the High School. We need this to pass.  So for those of you on Twitter, please RT my post related to the referendum so we can get the message out.

The website they created has all the information related to the projects.

Fall Season comes to an end 
What a great Fall Season! Special thanks to all the coaches, Boz, Mrs. Esteves and Mr. Mayer for making it all happening during these crazy times. As a group you gave our students and families some normalcy when so many people needed that.  

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