Virtual Learning Week 2

Brown School Staff, You Are A Gift!

You are all doing such incredible, admirable work to stay connected with our students during this scary and uncertain time. In addition to serving our families meals, sharing stories, and ensuring our classrooms are clean upon our return, you are also taking care of your families and exploring the many opportunities of virtual learning during a nationwide pandemic. Talk about wearing your capes, Superheroes!  

Throughout this post, I will share a few pictures from our Facebook page related to learning at home and your work in helping our families stay positive and feel supported. I know there are so many more connections not captured here. If you are communicating via SeeSaw or a closed FB page with your students' parents, please invite me so that I can celebrate your connections firsthand. 

Brown Elementary Staff Videos

Many staff members have recorded themselves reading a book to share with our students - thank you! Our families are loving this! In addition to posting on our closed Facebook page, you may also share it in this google folder. Jessa Calderwood, our PTO Secretary, is adding them to a slide show that I will link in our family blog for families that may not be members of our Facebook page.

Please consider joining me for a virtual staff meeting via Google Hangouts Meet on Friday, March 27th at 10:00 a.m. This optional time to connect will be centered around the following topics:

• Inclusion Activity
• Round Table Check-in: How are you? Your family?
• Updates and Questions
• Innovative Ideas to Share: What is going well with your home connections with students?

Click here to link to the meet. Hope to see your smiling faces soon!

News from Our Tech Integration Office
As a reminder, we have created an eLearning website with lots of resources. We have recently added an SEL section that the counseling staff has put together.
Also, we will be hosting drop in tech time. Here is the doc to add topics if you have things you want to know more about.

As always, if you have any questions or need assistance, please feel free to reach out to either of us or there is a form on the main page of the eLearning site to complete that will send it to both of us.  Hope to touch base soon.  Thank you for all of the amazing work you are doing and STAY 

HEALTHY!

Family Communication Guidelines

As we navigate this new world of virtual connectivity, please keep the following guidelines in mind:

*For your protection, parents/guardians must be in the room when you are connecting with students in a live discussion.

*While you can certainly use programs like Facebook or FaceTime to connect with students, please keep in mind that our IT department is not able to offer support on apps/programs that are not owned by our district.

*If a student is having trouble with a district-provided program and makes you aware of it, please get as many details as possible (type of device they are using, student name and number, any error message they may be receiving, etc.) and submit an IT help desk ticket on their behalf. 

*We are hearing of security issues with Zoom. Please stick to google hangouts for video conferencing calls. 

*Please complete this google form every Wednesday throughout the shut down, indicating how you are interacting with your students and which students you may have concerns about connectivity. The results are shared with me so that I can better support your communication with families. Thank you!

*If a family contacts you related to a student needing a device, please ask them to contact Sue Patzer at 926-3101 or spatzer@sjschools.org to set up an appointment to come in to get one. Due to the Stay at Home, Stay Safe order, Central Office is closed to the public. 

 

Amber's third graders reading from home.

Getting Ahead of End-of-the-Year Tasks

Here are a couple of additional spring tasks that classroom teachers might decide to tackle this week to get ahead of the year-end busy-ness:

*Welcome letters

*Grade level suggested supplies list (work with your team to ensure commonality, please)

Please stay in the loop by checking out our family blog as well. It is updated weekly.

Below is a message that I came across on Twitter and felt was so important to share with our families. #BetterTogether

Stay healthy and safe, Brown School Family!

Achieve. Inspire. Innovate. 

We are Brown School.