Dear Lower Division Families,

We continue to dedicate ourselves to the next steps in our pivot to remote learning. The teaching faculty are the drivers of your child’s educational experience, and we are committed to our service to your children, to you, and to the greater community in which we all live.

The purpose of this email is twofold: to provide details about the academic plan for the week of March 16–20 and to share the professional development the faculty will engage in to swiftly create the most robust and enhanced learning experience, tailored to the individual needs of your child. The faculty will be trained on how to use specific on-line platforms so that we continue to develop a model for differentiated remote learning. They will update and educate all families as we move forward.

For the Week of March 16–20

The first week in this process is dedicated to getting everyone settled into our new paradigm. It will be largely technology free, aside from the tools our learners already use such as Lexia, Dreambox, and Big Brainz. As I mentioned in my email last evening, if you are in need of a computer or iPad, please contact Adil Ech-Chahi at aechchahi@stevensonschool.org, and he will provide the tools you may need.

Next Steps:

This afternoon your child will arrive home with a packet of curricular resources. Please place it in a secure location.
You will receive a phone call from one of your child’s teachers over the weekend to talk through details and expectations.
By Sunday evening you will receive an email with targeted information relative to your child’s learning and what to expect for this first week of remote learning. This will include a daily checklist of activities. We hope this will be helpful with accountability and for parents to have a more structured plan they can easily follow.
Teaching faculty will schedule 1:1 virtual check-ins with students and families.

As lower division students are still developing their independence, a teacher-parent partnership is necessary for students to engage in remote learning tasks and, in some cases, to access on-line resources. We invite you to review some helpful steps in cultivating an effective learning environment in your home:

Plan appropriate work environments for students at home. Workspaces should be quiet, devoid of unnecessary technology, and in a public space such as a kitchen table, countertop, or desk.
Support emotional balance by providing ample room and time for reflection, physical activity, conversation, and play.
Communicate questions/concerns with classroom teachers.
Complete all assignments in accordance with provided timeline.

With our decision to transition to remote learning for the present moment, we remain committed to keeping you informed of our plans as they evolve. Our faculty have shown tremendous resilience, fortitude, and spirit in the hours since the news of this shift broke yesterday afternoon. While students will not be coming to campus, our vision for our students’ learning remains steadfast, and our academic program remains fully operational, with teachers adapting curriculum for these new circumstances. We are dedicated to the shift that we face and to the critical work of differentiating our teaching skills to best meet the needs of every learner.

I invite you to read this article: How Working Parents Can Prepare for Coronavirus Closures (Harvard Business Review). I hope it will provide you with some additional support and insight as we move through this process together.

Sincerely,

Mary Charles Collett

Dean of the Lower Division