Day 2 seemed so smooth! I saw lots of smiles from kids and adults, hopefully, it will get better every day.
Good news! We get to bring kiddos in for small groups. The regulations state no more than 45 kids in the building at a time, and 15% building capacity. Here's how it's going to look: ( lots of information to follow, you'll need to read through this a time or two and refer back to this page.)
1. Teachers will schedule their groups of kids based on our highest needs.
2. Students will only come in once a week right now. (You can have multiple groups coming in, but each individual student will only be in the building once a week.) To begin with, let's do one reading and one math group per grade level, no more than five kids per small group. Example-2nd grade could have Mrs. Barker, Ms. Akers, and Mr. Carter all doing a group of five kids each. I know there are kids that need both reading and math groups, but pick one for now. (Special education populations will get extra support from their sped teachers, so that is not your small group priority as a homeroom teacher.) It is up to you/your grade level how you want to schedule, and who to schedule. Some students will not feel comfortable coming in, even if they are ones we really need to see. In this case, you will need to broadcast your small group lesson via google meet so they have the option of participating online. Parents are asked to bring their kids in. If you have a student who absolutely cannot make it in and wants to be here in person, contact me.
3. We are planning for the short term (meaning we hope to be back in our building in September, but if that time comes and we still aren't allowed in-person instruction for the entire school, we will make another small group plan), and hope to reach our most vulnerable and high need students.
4. Amy Griffin is sending out a schedule for iready testing, which students will do at home. (The first iready test is not one we are as concerned about anyway, so it will be ok for them to take at home.) Feel free to use their scores, and any classroom measures you want to determine your priority groups. The regulation also states we have to make groups available to all students but can prioritize our high need students first. So when Parents ask why some are allowed to come in and some are not, you can reply with "Our groups are for our highest needs first, but we will be adding groups as we are able.", or something similar.
Contact Tracing:
In order to do our small groups, we have to be able to contact trace all of the kids in the building. So, each day, we will have to do a seating chart. I'll put one on the blog if you want to use it. My suggestion would be to have assigned seats, make copies of the seating chart, mark out anyone absent that day, change the date, and turn in. I'll be "the keeper of the seating charts", so turn in to me at the end of the week. There is a tray on my table labeled "seating charts". We also need a schedule of everyone's group times, the number of students and student names to ensure we have no more than 45 at a time. Please fill out your time in this google doc by the end of day, Friday, September 4. (You do NOT have to have your kids names at that time, just your day and time).
I know you will want to see all of your kids and it will be very tempting to switch out groups to see all of our students, but we can't do that at this point. We receive new information every day concerning Covid-19 with new regulations, and we could have to stop groups at any time. So we are focusing on our neediest for the time being. I PROMISE we will add students as we are able.
Here's what you need to do:
1. Decide what day and time your groups are going to meet as a grade level. (Even though all teachers in the grade level may have a group, list your kids as a grade level. I will contact trace the kids through the seating chart) Complete the google doc with;
a. day and time by end of day, September 4,
b. Student names by the end of the day on Friday, September 11.
You can start bringing your groups in on Monday, September 14. (IF you already know who your groups are going to be, and there is no need to wait, you can start bringing in your groups ASAP. Just get with me first to make sure times work, and remember your times may have to change a bit after the whole school gets going).
2. Be flexible. I'm going to try and make the schedule work as close to possible as what you indicate on the google doc, but we all know there may be a few changes. It will probably look different for different grade levels/teams, so I will answer any questions you have individually. Since there are only 45 kids allowed in the building at a time, small groups could interfere with things like screenings. No mass screenings are scheduled yet, but just be prepared for that to happen, and we will deal with that when it does.
I will send out the final schedule and then you can contact parents to let them know what times, etc. I'm sure there are things I haven't thought of, so let me know if you think of any kinks.
Here we go, reinventing education again! I couldn't be more confident in a better group of people to make it happen! Let's do this!
-Lisa
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