Dear Parents,

As we start this week of online learning, I am hoping to give you as much information as possible to help your stress and anxiety but also at the same time not overwhelm you! It is very important that you read this blog post carefully in order to understand your child’s learning expectations.

We (teachers) spent much of last week in meetings with administration and with our fellow teachers learning about the state of Michigan’s directive for online learning. We then had to learn what the district submitted to the county for approval- our Continuity Of Learning Plan. We were told that this plan had been emailed to parents, but I’d like to outline just a few things for clarification:

The district expects that all children will be doing the coursework posted weekly in their Google Classrooms to the best of their ability. Completion of assignments and participation in the Google Meets will be used as evidence of student involvement. Learning will continue until June 11th, whereupon the student will receive a report card graded as the following:

Meeting- Student regularly submits work, has high participation and attends most Google Meets.

Progressing- Student submits most assignments and attends some Google Meets.

Limited- Student has little or no submitted assignments and little or no participation in Google Meets.

That being said, we (the 3rd Grade Teachers) will post weekly assignments on our online learning calendar every Sunday for the following week. The learning calendar can be found at the top of this blog post under the calendar tab. We have also decided to post it each week in your child’s google classroom assignment page so that your children do not have to have access to this blog post in order to find the assignments. We hope that this makes things easier for you. 🙂 Please let your child know that they can find the calendar there now.

The only things your child will need to turn in to the teacher are assignments connected in their google classroom. Any notes done in notebooks or taken on paper do not need to be turned in.

We will have one Google Meet per week. Ours will be on Friday at 10 a.m. this week. I had to move off of Wednesday because the special area teachers needed that time frame. Please follow the directions on the interactive calendar to access the Google Meet.

I will start “grading” your child’s work and commenting on the work they turn in. This will be done throughout the week. They will have access to my comments and grades in Google Classroom. If your child gets behind in assignments I will send an email to you (the parent). However, please do not worry if they are a little late turning in assignments. We are trying to post just enough in order to keep them learning, but are not trying to overwhelm them with too much work! Please click on this link to see a schedule of how you can potentially structure your child’s day.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rxvclRaACiEA9Eyc25hDUmqJS_LwYJ5x8KBFDNXtIH0/edit?ts=5e977491

Finally, I will have “office hours” where I will be available to answer emails, questions or trouble shoot technology issues everyday between 9 and 11 am. If you ask questions outside of this time frame, I will do my best to respond, but your questions may not get answered until the following day.

I truly hope this blog post was helpful and NOT overwhelming. I am here for your child!! I wish with all my heart we could be back in school.