I hope everyone has enjoyed Spring Break! This week, we will start having Google Hangout meetings. Each class will have one meeting this week, so be sure to check your email for the invitation. I hope to see you soon!

We are reposting this survey, to allow more families to share their thoughts on how to best guide instruction during these unprecedented times!

O.L. Smith teachers are working diligently to improve your child’s remote learning experience. Please take a moment to provide your feedback. Fill out the survey below so we can best serve your child’s educational needs. Thank you.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeQ-HOZ40r8uJ8h5S3mz4Wd4A_fWSradXYrqXjMB60exlBdSA/viewform

With the school closure in place, report cards will NOT be printed and mailed. You can check your student’s grades using Parent Connect. I have included information from the district on how to access this resource.

1. How do parents login to ParentConnect? To login to ParentConnect, parents need their PIN and password; there are 2 options to get this information.Option 1 (Screen below – Recommended): Parents go to Dearborn Schools web site then ParentConnect link. If they don’t know the login info, they click (Need Your Login Information) link and it will prompt them to enter their email address as provided to the school and entered in MIStar (Menu/Enrollment/Student Editor/Contacts) and click Submit. This process emails them their PIN and Password.

Option 2 (Screen below): If parents are unable to receive the email (no email, etc) and administrators need to provide the info, administrators can access MIStar Menu / System / ParentConnect Manager / Contacts Passwords as indicated below. Even though Option 2 is available for administrators, Option 1 is recommended because parents have to login to their email to retrieve the info and you can always add the email in Student Editor/Contacts if missing.

2. What is available in ParentConnect?Given that Elementary report cards are due tonight and Middle Schools report cards are due tomorrow, please remind the teachers to finalize their grades by the timeline so that we can start processing soon.
 1. Starting Tuesday morning, I will run the missing grades for elementary schools and email administrators the issues so that they can follow-up; once the reports are complete, I will process these report cards by sending the info to ParentConnect 2. Starting Wednesday, I will run the missing grades reports for middle schools and email administrators the issues so that they can follow-up; once the reports are complete, I will process the report cards and GPAs 3. Once grades are finalized, I will then post them online (ParentConnect, Student Connect). I will do my best to try to have the grades posted by the end of the day Friday but it may be early next week as this process may take a bit longer than usual given that the Computer Services staff is not working except me. I will keep you updated of the progress during the week.
Questions:1. Would you like me to add a general message in ParentConnect for all Elementary and Middle schools such as Marking Period 3 grades have been generated based on assignments and assessments available or something similar? Shannon, Jill and Fatme, please email me if you wish one general message that I can include for all.2. Once the grades are available, should David send a robocall for Elementary and Middle Schools? Or should teachers just add on their bogs?
Following is the information that parents can see in ParentConnect. Administrators can view similar data and more options by accessing MIStar Menu/ Enrollment / Student Profile.

Office of the Superintendent

TO: All District Staff                    

FROM: Glenn Maleyko, Ph.D, Superintendent                 

RE: Friday Update During the Current COVID 19 Crisis

DATE: March 27, 2020

Happy Friday Everyone,

I hope that you are doing well. Here are a few updates. 

Great Job!!! On behalf of the Board of Education and the Central Office Cabinet, I want to express my appreciation for the great work by our teachers and all staff as we deal with the current school shutdown and international crisis. The things that I have seen and the feedback that I have received from parents, students, and staff has been outstanding. I have the utmost confidence and trust in your ability to continue to support our students. You are truly making a difference as you put “students first” during this unprecedented crisis. 

Current Work Schedule: Right now all teachers and administrators are working from home (Their shelter in place per the Governor’s order). Moving forward we will discuss how this applies to other classifications and we will have appropriate conversations with the union leadership. Although we cannot predict an overall budget from the state and what will happen under this current COVID 19 crisis, our objective is to continue to pay our staff and provide benefits throughout the crisis. 

Spring Break: We will try to treat this like a normal spring break with the exception of the Governor’s order. Those who are normally off will have the week off. (Ex, teachers, administrators, building staff members who are normally off, etc). That includes virtual learning.  Those who normally work will work (many from home) and those who are considered essential workers (Engineers, custodians, food service workers, IT, business officials, etc.) have permission to enter buildings with the approval of their supervisor. Essential workers must adhere to appropriate social distancing per the Governor’s order. 

Virtual Visits with Glenn and David. We will continue to tape virtual visits from home and we plan to publish two per week. Here are the latest episodes. 

Episode #7 From Home . March 26,  

Episode #6 taped this past Tuesday. 

On-line Learning: Dr. Chochol, Ms. Peterson, Ms. Faraj, Mr. Patterson, Mr. Esseily, Dr. Groover, the on-line learning committee, and the instructional cabinet had several meetings to work out the details. I commend them and all of you for the work that you are doing. Please understand that we are in an unprecedented time. As we continue to move forward with additional support for students we must also realize that our sense of normalcy has changed and we need to take risks with trying new tools during this current crisis. Using new tools and/or mastering the current tools that we use via on-line learning will help us to continue to support our students and our community. Thankfully we are state leaders when it comes to on-line learning and technology integration. 

Virtual Meetings and Google Hangouts: I have been extremely busy working from home and my days are flying by. I am sure that many of you can relate to that statement. I am holding two executive cabinet meetings per week, two crisis team meetings, union meetings, General Administrators once per week with all administrators in the district, meetings and discussion with Board Trustees, and other important meetings related to the operation of the district. Our Board of Education meeting that is scheduled for April 13 will be a virtual meeting. I have held successful meetings with over 100 administrators online via Google Hangouts which was extremely successful and with very few technical issues. I have directed all administrators to hold one meeting per week with all building staff and departments in order to keep everyone informed of critical issues and to allow feedback and discussion with staff. In addition, I will start to meet with the Superintendent’s Student Advisory Council via google hangouts starting next week. 

Donations: Dearborn Public Schools Donated Several gloves and goggles from Science labs to hospitals. Thank you to Shannon Peterson and her husband Rick along with Representative Hammoud for taking the lead on this.  In addition, the Dearborn Education Foundation is accepting donations to support our students during this crisis. Click Here to view that information. 

Does Online Learning Count. Please click here for an update that I will make available to the public and our school community.  

Stay, Safe, Healthy and Take care of your families.  During these unprecedented times, I encourage you to do what is necessary to protect your loved ones. My family and I have decided to cancel our normal Easter family gatherings. It is disappointing but very necessary given these times as we need to do our part to flatten the curve and support our medical service workers who are going above and beyond to help those who are sick or in need of medical assistance. We can all do our part!!!

What We know and don’t know:  Unfortunately this situation is very fluid and we do not have answers to all questions that may be out there.  The Governor stated this morning that she does not think that we will return to school this year. Our team will continue to plan for that possibility along with the possibility of returning. I am confident that regardless of the outcome all of you will continue to work hard to support our school community and the students that we serve. 

I will leave you with the following quote and I hope that you have a relaxing weekend. 

“I think it’s very important as well to say to people to concentrate on the time when it will be over. It will be over, but it will be over with the least loss of life and with the least hardship if, in fact, we do what is tough now but is necessary.”

“Yes, it will be over, and we are in control of how it will turn out.”

                                   President of Ireland Michael D. Higgins

Google Classroom:

Students use Google Classroom daily at Smith. They should know exactly how to log in and use it independently.

Some tips for using Google Classroom at home:

1. Make sure you are logging in with your school email/password
2. Check to see if your internet browser is logged into a different account. You may need to log in to your school account through your browser as well.
3. Check your school gmail account for updates from Google Classroom. You get alerts there whenever your teachers post!
4. Use the classwork tab at the top of the page!!! It is often easier to find materials through this tab than through scrolling the stream!
5. There’s an app for that!!!!! If you cannot log in through a computer, use the app!!! (parents CANNOT use the app as a guardian)

Some Google Classroom tips for parents/guardians:

1. You can become a guardian for your child in Google Classroom. Give your email address to one of your child’s teachers and they can invite you to the system. If you are a guardian in one class, you are already listed as a guardian in all of your child’s other classes.
   1. You will get emails when announcements are made
   2. You will get weekly summaries sent to your email of all announcements and assignments
2. You can ask your child to log in to Google Classroom and show you what they are doing in each of their classes. We will all be updating Google Classroom regularly throughout the closure.
3. If you have any questions about Google Classroom, email me directly.

I am sharing a video that was made by a teacher at Woodworth that has some really great tips for adjusting to online learning. I have taken many online classes myself and I have to admit that I prefer the in-person classes. With that being said, we have to make the best of our current situation, so take a minute to watch Mr. Mustonen’s video:

The following resources were shared with me and I thought I would pass them along. Please feel free to email me if you have any questions that I might be able to answer for you.

Chrome Extensions for Struggling Students:
https://www.controlaltachieve.com/2016/10/special-needs-extensions.html
Parents’ Guide to Google Classroomhttps://drive.google.com/file/d/1uFBoYMjS9vrWSDwq6djRKKIwIReN5vnG/view?fbclid=IwAR30KBO9H7h8I-biP8qEXioFr9vZ1l_2fMx9rFV3JAbereAGgkqQQ1wseRQ