RoadRunner Review: Online School-Week One
Hello Family and Friends,
Our first online chapel speaker, Jeremy Craik, (zooming all the way from Montana!) shared with our students and community the importance of God being our Adventure guide.
I wanted to update you on how things are going this week and let you know how we are approaching some challenges we have had this week! First, there has been a LOT in the news about the increased use of Zoom and issues pertaining to privacy and zoombombing etc. We are aware of those issues and actually took some steps BEFORE we unrolled Zoom to address these issues.
Here is what we are doing to make sure we are following federal regulations and protecting our kids—
We have a layer of protection since all of our students have closed Emerald Christian Academy email accounts.
We are not asking students to create Zoom accounts just access our teacher accounts through their invitations.
All teachers are asked to enable a "waiting" room. Meaning a student cannot enter a room before the teacher gets there.
In addition, screen sharing/locked meetings/and breakout rooms are only managed by teachers and students have access only when teachers provide the opportunity for student interaction in that way.
We will NEVER share Zoom invites publicly on our website, Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. We will share invites with families on Remind or through private email.
Finally, we will not be recording or photographing zoom sessions. Any photographed zoom sessions that are shared will only showcase adults. We are asking that YOU also be mindful of taking pictures of your student on zoom and sharing online--just in case there are other students that are visible.
The second thing we are wrestling with during this "different" time is how do we grade?!
To provide flexibility to teachers and students, but ALSO follow best practices in education we will be grading using the following terms:
“E” is for excelling = student is showing a high level of proficiency in many of the targeted skills and content areas.
“P” is for progressing = student is working toward proficiency in targeted skills and content and may be proficient in some areas.
“B” is for beginning = student is working on building a foundation for targeted skills and content and has not yet become proficient in any area.
Here is a link to a school district that regularly grades in this manner.
We want to remind you that our FIRST priority is your child's emotional well-being.
We are choosing to prioritize Connection and Collaboration over Content.
We are choosing to minimize the hours your child will be in front of a screen for class.
Miss. Hewlett has provided a lot of guidance as a trained Social Worker in providing steps we, as a staff can take to support your child. Here is a site that she found that I, personally, have found very helpful as an educator and as a parent.
Finally, I know that we are currently standing on shifting sands and what stability we had one week is gone the next week. We recognize the financial difficulty posed by the reality of Covid-19 vary from family to family. Rest assured that we are taking this into account at ECA and are creating avenues to provide financial support.
I pray that you find strength and peace during these uncertain times.
“What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?”
Romans 8:31