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April 22, 2020

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, etc. Have a conversation about why it is important to stay engaged...they are still working to earn credit. This needs to be a team effort to keep all of our students active and seeing the value in school right now.

More information will be coming regarding how we look at Power Standards. You are doing a great job determining priority content.

If you have an urgent issue to regarding a student and need to send an email I am asking you to include the counselor and Dean on every email. If you have a mental health concern (that is not urgent) include Jen Shiels or Jess Curran and Jimmy Phillips if the student is on an IEP. It is important that emails go to all relevant parties. (Urgent matters should be referred directly to a parent and/or 911.)

I neglected to share with you yesterday the plan for Ms. Graham during her maternity leave. Her colleagues have stepped up big time and have taken on her classes. Ms. Benstock is covering Biology, Ms. Naughton is covering Marine Biology, and Ms. Sherman has Environmental AP. We are so appreciative of them and the extra work they are taking on!

I will have some more specific guidance around grading expectations tomorrow after a department liaison meeting. As we move into the "this is really happening for the rest of the year" phase we need to set up consistent expectations that parents and colleagues can refer to for information.

I have had staff from younger buildings ask about jumping in to say hi at some of your meetings. If you would like your students to have visits from teachers from the other buildings, or even us, send me the links.

Stay safe!

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