Weekly 7-12 Newsletter 4/6/2020

Good morning!

I hope this newsletter finds you all safe and healthy!  It looks to be a fairly cloudy but warm spring week.  I personally hope there is a bit more sunshine than forecast to make time outdoors more enjoyable.

Thank you to all the parents who completed the feedback survey from last week.  I've shared the results with my staff and we will be adjusting our delivery to hopefully be less stressful and easier to plan for and around.  For the time being, there will be no grades or attendance posted in eschool.  All record keeping will be contained in Google Classroom.  If you would like a weekly update and notifications from Google Classroom, please ask a teacher to send you a parent invite.  If you would like to see exactly what your student can see, use their login credentials to login on your own device.  There is a Google Classroom app for both Android and Apple devices.

Many of you mentioned wanting help with helping your student organize their day.  Below you will find pictures of two ways that I keep myself and my children organized in this alternative environment.  My children have a daily board of post-its containing all of the tasks they have to do for school and for their parents.  Once done, they physically move them down to the done section.  I use my personal planner to chart out all of my obligations for the week and check them off as completed.  This can also be done digitally with Google Tasks and Google Calendar.  My soon to be 11 year old uses a combination of digital tools and physical reminders to keep herself on track and learn how to manage her time.  Learning how to use these tools now, will help your students be more productive in the future.

All 9th, 10th, and 11th grade students have received an invitation to complete a practice ACT from MasteryPrep.  The MasteryPrep company is offering all students currently not in school a chance to take two free practice ACT tests.  Once taken, the student will be provided with individualized feedback for each question missed and how to improve in the future.  This is a prime opportunity to prepare for the ACT exam and help boost your score at no cost.  Seniors who still plan on taking the ACT in June can contact me to receive their own invitation.

The College Board has released their final guidelines for testing this year.  They are offering free courses and review sessions between now and test time.  The schedule for sessions and tests can be found here: https://apcoronavirusupdates.collegeboard.org/students  You can also view the topic of each lesson under your course title below the time schedule.  Exams will be given May 11th - May 22nd.  Each exam will be a 45 minute, open-book, open-note, multiple choice exam that students can take from home.  College board believes that MOST universities will provide college credit for students earning the appropriate score on these exams.

I know that many of you have asked about course selections for the 2020-2021 school year.  Mrs. Lindley and I will be building the 2020-2021 course catalog in eschool this week.  Once completed, teachers will recommend next courses for students.  Once they have completed recommendations and we have uploaded them, students and parents will be able to select their desired courses in eschool.  I will release a special video guide for how to do this once ready.  We're hoping for late April, early May.  After I know what numbers look like for courses, we'll begin building the master schedule in eschool and run schedules for the next school year.  Students should have next years schedule in late May/early June.

Governor Hutchinson is supposed to be releasing an update for the rest of the school year today.  Once that update is published, I will address it's effects on us with a follow up email to the whole AAA 7-12 community. 

Thank you for your patience and understanding throughout the rollout of our emergency learning plans.  We hope that everyone in the AAA community remains safe and that you are all finding ways to stay connected with friends even if you can't be physically with them.  I know that the extra time I've been able to spend with my children and the slower pace of life now forced on me have been unexpected blessings.  I hope the experience has its share of blessings for all of you as well.

Have a great week and stay safe Diamonds!

Heather Wright

Currently reading: The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee by David Treuer