School Year Day 2 Update

Seeing all our students yesterday and today, whether it is in person or online, has brought us so much joy. Even the middle school students, who stereotypically can be grumpy about school, have expressed that they are so happy to be back! Day 1 is under our belts and as I write this, we are well into day 2.

Today I would like to share a few important reminders and clarifications:

1. Everyone– be patient and flexible. Our teachers and staff are working extremely hard to make learning effective for students who are learning online, simultaneously teaching student in class, utilizing a model that we have literally never done before. We are blessed with an incredibly talented technology director in Roger Davenport and a group of teachers who work very well together, so we are figuring it all out, but we will have some hiccups along the way such as systems crashing, connection issues at time, and miscommunications. Please model patience and resilience for your student whether they are at home or at school. We will work through it together!
2. Virtual families – encourage your student to take recess breaks along with the class. We schedule these breaks intentionally for our learners at school and we know our learners at home will benefit from taking a quick walk, stretching, and/or moving around the house.
3. In person families with multiple siblings – if you have older siblings that need to be dropped off at the later drop-off time, please try to arrive at school right around 8:12 AM if possible. It’s difficult for us to “hold” students at the door without combining cohorts, so if you arrive prior to that, you can drop off your younger student but please wait to drop off the older one.
4. In person students in grades 4-8 – please avoid arriving prior to 8:15 AM or remain in the car until 8:15 AM. Again, we do not have space to effectively keep cohorts separate in front of the school.
5. Virtual PE students – Mr. Goodspeed will be sharing some exercise videos he has found on YouTube. In general, YouTube is not a platform we use very much and we ask our students to watch the specific videos sent out but that parents monitor use of YouTube beyond that.

If you not watched the back to school video we sent out on Tuesday, please take a few minutes to view it, linked here.

Thank you to all of you for being part of our Hope family this year! We feel so blessed.