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