OUTDATED: Back to School Family Letter
- Mrigayu Ghosh
- Jun 16, 2020
- 4 min read
Updated: Jul 24, 2020
* BEFORE READING: The back to school guidelines listed below have changed. Please refer to the most up-to-date posts in the "Summer 2020 & Back 2 School Updates" Category in the Blog.
Dear Uplift Families,
I hope that you are all doing well and keeping healthy. Our teachers, school leaders and campus teams are excited to invite your scholars back to school starting August 11, 2020.
The Texas Education Agency announced last week that public schools could re-open for the 2020-21 school year and serve scholars in-person if the following social distance measures were in place:
Each student has at least 45 square feet of space
There is 6 feet separating one student from another student
There are no more than 22 students in a classroom
Given the typical size of an Uplift classroom, we will likely be at 10-15 students per room with a teacher. We are still determining the exact plan for how we will rotate children through an in-person/ virtual learning environment but wanted to share with you what type of planning is actively underway. We also recognize that some parents may prefer to have their children continue learning from home only, and we are developing a plan to support those families as well. Please do note that for families who prefer an “100% learning from home” option for their scholar, it will be much more formal than our remote learning this past Spring. Scholars will be required to be online for certain times of the day and attendance will be taken. For all the options we are considering, we want to hear your feedback as we plan and hope you will participate in this short survey.
There are several new safety measures and protocols that will be implemented to keep our scholars and staff healthy while being at school. Our three committees to finalize our plans to open Uplift schools safely include:
Operations & Technology- This includes all of our safety practices- PPE equipment, classroom configurations for social distancing, temperature checks, building procedures, signage, and procedures our school health professionals will use.
Well-being/ Trauma Response- This includes being proactive in supporting the emotional/ well-being side of returning to school, including teacher training.
Teaching & Learning- This includes designing how we balance in-person and virtual learning, refinements to our curriculum, refinements to our intervention structures, rolling out a K-12 online learning system, and teacher training.
We plan to give you updates on how our planning is going every few weeks. In late July, families will receive our full “return to school” plan. There are a few initial details of our plan that I have noted below.
Entering and Exiting the Building
Every child will have their temperature checked when entering school. Anyone entering the building with an elevated temperature will be taken to an isolation room for further examination and will be sent home. We know that fever does not necessarily connote coronavirus, but it is a symptom that will identify a potential illness. We look forward to partnering with our parents to help keep children who are not feeling well home from school. All staff and scholars in school buildings will wear a mask and/or face shield. Uplift will provide the initial set of face coverings for each student, and families of course are welcome to supply their own face coverings as well.
Cleaning, Disinfecting, and Sanitizing
Uplift Education will enact the recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control, the Texas Department of Health, and the State of Texas in our cleaning protocols. To that end, ongoing cleaning, disinfecting, and sanitizing will take place throughout the day in the most unobtrusive manner so that the learning environment is not disrupted.
Sanitizing stations will be placed in each classroom or office so that students and teachers have easy access. Students will be required to clean their hands before lunch.
Each evening the building is deep cleaned.
Each scholar will use their own set of basic supplies vs. sharing “common” supplies.
Distance Learning Update
We appreciate the feedback we have received from families about how the 2019-20 distance learning experience worked. Based on research, our team of educators have decided to implement Schoology as our new learning management system that would be used in a closure or remote learning setting. Additionally, we will be using Schoology regularly as a part of your scholar’s day so they can build familiarity with the tool and will be nimbler using it independently should that be required again.
Revisions to Our Academic Calendar
We have also updated our 2020-21 academic calendar based on TEA’s guidance to include “COVID-19 Make-Up Days” in case we need to close schools for any reason related to COVID over the course of the school year. You can see our attached academic calendars which are also on our website. This calendar is similar to what we sent out this Spring and adds the entire month of June as our “COVID-19 Make Up Days.” If we have no days where we need to close school for COVID, then we will end the academic year on May 28th as originally communicated. For every day that we need to be closed for COVID, we will just extend the school year into June for that specific number of days.
We thank you again for your partnership in your scholar’s educational journey at Uplift and welcome feedback as we reopen schools. As shared previously, we will continue to send you updates over the course of the summer and will host virtual town halls in July to explain our complete school opening plans.
In partnership,
Yasmin Bhatia
Uplift Education CEO
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