AHS Faculty/staff news

Hi all- This email originally started with I hope you had a good weekend but was still in my drafts. I can see now why a few of you didn't know what I was referring to during some check-in's this week. Please don't ever hesitate to say "we didn't get the email you are referencing...." Last Thursday I met with the department liaisons to further discuss assessment practices during remote learning. Now that we know we are out for the remainder of the school year it will be important to report our assessment of students in a consistent format. This is for the benefit of students and parents. Starting this week please use iPass to record assignments and your assessment of completion of/participation in the assignment. After much discussion on what would work best we agreed to use the following scale, which I shared with parents on Friday: 1- assignment completed 0.5- assignment partially completed, student can revise/redo using teacher feedback for growth 0- assign...

Good afternoon all- I hope you had a great day. A very happy Administrative Professional Day to Ms. Chaney, Ms. Duane, and Ms. Santiago. You are the glue that keeps us together and we are grateful every day for what you do. I miss seeing your smiles every day!!! I wanted to follow up on our discussion yesterday about moving forward with collecting data on student wellness/participation. We want to keep tracking whether or not students are engaged in your classes. This is important data and we need to keep it centralized. I will send the Student Wellness Survey to you each Friday . Please complete it for any student you have concerns about . Things will ebb and flow with all of us so we want to know if a student who was engaged has fallen off. Counselors will analyze the results and look for patterns to help in best supporting students. If you find a student is not engaged please remember you are the first line of communication. Reach out to the student and their parent by e-mail, phone...

Good evening all- I've spent the afternoon wondering why something that I've known if coming for a while is hitting me so hard. I suppose it's the reality of not seeing our students again, and worrying about how are they going to be prepared for next year, and how are they going to make it through this with out a mental health crisis. I guess it's the loss of hope that is hitting me. I am glad I am working through this with all of you. Tonight I ask that you remember that students are really struggling, they are not avoiding work because they think this is a vacation, they are adjusting to a new and confusing norm. They are scared and sad. The seniors are really hurting.  Here are a few lines from an email Erin and I received this afternoon. It is long but the gist is many are feeling overwhelmed with the volume of work and not being able to ask questions when they have them. Please remember students should not have more than 3 hours of work per day, across all class...

Good morning all- I'll see you all at 12:15! Link in last night's update. I anticipate the "AHS Loves the Class of 2020" signs will be ready in the next few days. Complete this survey if you want to help deliver them. Sign delivery Please review the attached list of Club/activities at AHS. If you are an advisor of a club not listed please let me know. It was nice to see this news today. As much as I am not a fan of rankings we should be proud of the work we do each day.  From Chad: "Ashland is ranked #2 in MA and #23 nationally, by US News for STEM education which focuses on AP participation and performance in math and science." https://www.usnews.com/ education/best-high-schools/ massachusetts/districts/ ashland/ashland-high-9266

Good evening all- I hope you had a lovely weekend. It's been a crazy weather one for sure. It kept me entertained...watching the snow on Saturday, an awesome hike in the warm weather on Sunday...when in New England as they say. We will have a faculty check-in tomorrow,  Tuesday at 12:15pm. Hope to see you there! Bring your lunch and say hi. Topic: Faculty check-in Time: Apr 21, 2020 12:15 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada) Join Zoom Meeting https://zoom.us/j/188287480?pwd=c1BlemFVcytCSEVBRllKV1FvaDJXdz09 Meeting ID: 188 287 480 Password: 932647 Marybeth came across this great resource worth sharing: Here's the link, for National Standards for Quality Online Courses.   https://www.nsqol.org/the- standards/quality-online- courses/ Here is an article to remind us of what we need to focus on right now. Not-all-students-can-do-virtual-learning-and-we-need-to-cut-them-some-slack (link wasn't working earlier for some reason, hope it comes back!) Congratulations to the Graham's o...

Good morning- Just a few quick points of information this morning: If you have had a student identify they do not have a device to work on please let me know ASAP. I will coordinate with IT about the need for a Chromebook. I will be going in tomorrow to coordinate delivery so let me know ASAP. There is a limited number currently available. As a reminder, Term 3 & 4 are now combined and the end date for Term 3 has been changed to 6/16/20. iParent and iStudent are open so that students and parents can see assignments you are entering. Yesterday at the Class of 2020 meeting the students came up with the idea to have some performances, coffee house style, at their next meeting. The seniors seem to just want to chat with each other and are clearly sad about what is happening with their senior year. We also talked about how they felt about the post your senior picture in support of the seniors. They said it just made them sad to think about the senior year other people got to experience....

Hi all- I was planning to send this out last night but Mother Nature had other plans and we were without power for a few hours. Hoping all those who are still without power are doing okay. I will record today's meeting and send it to anyone that requests it. Bring your lunch and touch base about how everything is going. I really want to hear your thoughts on grading! Please also complete this brief survey about class participation  . I am trying to get a better handle on how many students are engaging by completing the work you are assigning. Topic: Faculty check-in's Time: Apr 14, 2020 12:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada) Join Zoom Meeting https://zoom.us/j/188287480?pwd=c1BlemFVcytCSEVBRllKV1FvaDJXdz09 Meeting ID: 188 287 480 Password: 932647 Several of you have reached out about student's working and attending Driver's Education. All I can say is that this is an unprecedented time and we can't fault students for the choices their families are making, and in som...

Good evening and Happy Passover to those who are celebrating. I hope you had a great day. I enjoyed "ending my work day" listening to School Committee talk about how hard teachers are working. Thank you. As we discussed at faculty meeting yesterday, please focus this week on looking to balance your instructional time and your own health and well-being. We are hearing a range of feedback from students. Some appreciate the level of work they are receiving as it helps to keep them busy. Others are feeling incredibly overwhelmed. Please be flexible with students. We want to know if there are students who have not heard from at all. Please complete the survey that was sent previously linked here:  Students You Have Not Had Contact With Survey Please complete this survey at the end of classes tomorrow (Thursday). Many have sent me direct emails which I appreciate but we need all of the information in a centralized location. Remember, counselors will be here to support you and reach...

Good evening all- I hope you had a wonderful weekend. It was definitely good to unplug from the computer and Zoom meetings. This week our  Faculty check-in will be on Tuesday, April 7 at noon. Bring your lunch and check in about how things are going. I am looking forward to hear how the first few days of remote learning have gone. Please remember to give yourselves and the students time to adjust. At this time you can stop cc'ing administration on your class emails. We were doing that in order to drop links into the Enrichment Website. Now that we are on to Remote Learning we are all set! Thank you for sharing with us up to this point. It has been amazing to see the work you are doing. We will be talking more this week about some guidelines for grading and attendance. Please share your thoughts, questions, concerns with your department liaison. We are meeting Monday at 2pm. Read this article that Jim posted as well.  Keep school-Cancel grades-It's what you do in a pandemic If...

I hope you had a great first three days of remote learning. Thank you for the incredible amount of work you have all done. This is HARD and you keep rising to the challenge. I have heard stories about the new technology tools you have learned to use, the ways you have modified goals for your courses, and most importantly, how you have reached out to and supported students. If you haven't seen this visual, I wanted to share it here. This is where our focus needs to be right now! Thank you to those of you who have reached out about students they have not heard from. I was part of the Chromebook distribution today and saw some of those students. I hope to see them getting back in the groove soon. If students are not joining your classes or responding to your emails please make sure you are also reaching out to their parents/guardians. I will share a survey on Sunday that we will use to track students who are not engaging. We as that at the end of the day each Friday you fill out the s...