WOH For Tuesday, March 17, 2020
Day 2 – Hope to Home Learning – the Green Edition by Kristen Okabayashi, Principal
Happy St. Patrick’s Day everyone! I came out of an intense teacher meeting this morning (where I’m still stunned that we are completely changing our entire teaching process in less than one week) to discover that as usual, the leprechauns had visited our Sea Stars class on St. Patrick’s Day. Those leprechauns can be naughty and on this year’s visit, they turned all the water green in the class! Despite everything changing in the world around us, the consistency of the leprechauns’ visit felt comforting and familiar to me. As much as things are different, they are also the same, and know that we will always love your students and will do our very best to educate them well.
That being said, it’s time to begin our Hope to Home Learning tomorrow! If you have not already, you will hear from your child’s homeroom teacher today. Just as each teacher has a different teaching style in the classroom, at-home teaching styles will vary as well. All homeroom teachers will be sending out weekly plans on what lessons will be covered that week to use as a checklist. Many teachers sent home textbooks and other physical materials last week for students to use as resources; again, this varies from teacher to teacher. Some teachers will continue to provide resources to pick up in the school office and they will communicate that to you if needed. At this point we intend to continue keeping the school office open from 8:00 AM to noon Mon-Thurs.
In terms of online content and teaching, all our teachers (preschool through 8th grade) will be working mainly from three different platforms. After much research and brainstorming over recent days, we have settled on using Seesaw as the learning platform for preschool through third grade. Seesaw is easy for younger students to access and use, and it is simple for teachers to send out videos related to the learning target we want students to hit. Students and families can sign up for this free resource by following this link: https://web.seesaw.me/.
Students in grades four through eight will use Schoology, which is the online grading platform Hope has used for years in middle school. Most of our older students are accustomed to using Schoology already, and they have all been provided with access codes. If you would like to access Schoology as a parent and need an access code, please let your child’s teacher or the school office know. Link: https://www.schoology.com/
Teachers in all grades (preschool through 8th grade) plan to gather students together online in video chats through the platform Zoom. Link: https://zoom.us/home?zcid=2478 Students can easily join a Zoom “meeting” by clicking on an access code given to them by their teacher. You may need to download the Zoom app when your child clicks on the URL or the access code but it is free to download. You should not need to set up an account to join a chat/meeting.
We anticipate the daily workload to be between one to four hours depending on the age and how quickly each student works. Since we are creating at home learning for the first time and doing it very quickly, we anticipate many challenges and hiccups to happen along the way. Please be patient as we journey together along this path. Also, know that your child can do this! We are trying to put systems in place where they can work mostly independently of parental help, or in some cases completely without help. I believe in us! Looking forward to tomorrow!
Facebook LIVE!
If you are currently on Facebook, please follow the school and church page for the latest updates and news plus a morning announcement to start off the day. If you are not on Facebook you can view the posts on our website homepage in the weekly blog post.
Registration for Fall 2020
If you have not registered for Fall 2020, now is the time to do so. You may register your student(s) through the K12Online Portal using each student’s i.d. and access key (contact the office if you need this information). Tuition contracts will be sent out at the end of April, including financial assistance letters. Please make sure to apply for assistance no later than the end of April. If you have any questions regarding registering your student(s), please email Admissions Director, Sally Heit at sheit@hopseattle.org.
Financial Aid Information for 2020-21 Academic Year
We partner with School and Student Services (SSS) for our financial aid process each year. Instructions for applying for financial aid at Hope Lutheran School are available by visiting sss.nais.org/parents. Our school’s SSS code is 179833. The Early Decision deadline is March 31st and the final deadline to apply for aid is April 30, 2020.
Thank you!
We’d like to say Thank You to everyone for their support of our bi-annual auction a few weeks ago. This is a unique time in the life of the Hope School community—and the world. We are so proud of our school—teachers, staff, students, parents—for the ways Hope is prayerfully and carefully planning for next steps during this COVID-19 Crisis. We have much to do, and these are uncertain times. But we also have much to celebrate.
The additional support of the Eagle Excellence Fund was astounding. As you may know, we have launched an initiative to help Hope be an even stronger faith-focused, student-centered school which inspires excellence in every student. This initiative is called the Eagle Excellence Fund and it provides resources for five critical areas of excellence at Hope: Academics, Staff, Technology, Student Life, and Affordability.
Perhaps now more than ever, a gift to Hope School will make a tremendous impact. Every gift makes a difference by enabling us to purchase additional Makerspace materials, upgrade technology in every classroom, and ensure we can continue to attract and retain the best Christian educators in the Puget Sound. If you were not able to make a gift and would like to partner with us in ensuring that Hope Lutheran School is around for 60 more years, you may make a tax deductible contribution here.
Church News & Activities – Click Here
All church services including Wednesday LENT services have been canceled at this time. Visit our website https://vimeo.com/hopeseattle/videos to watch live video church services.