Friday April 17 8 a.m.

Parents

On behalf of all of us at TSD, we want to acknowledge the hard work of parents. During this interruption of traditional school, you've been asked to stay at home, prepare meals, clean up after meals, help your children with school work using methods of delivery that are often confusing. In addition, you may be working your regular job, taking care of your parents and maintaining a home. There is no doubt that parents are under a lot of pressure right now. We see you and we want to do everything we can to help ease the burden. When it comes to your child's school work, if you or your child are having trouble accessing, understanding or submitting school work, your first and best contact is your child's teacher.

Each of our teachers is available by phone and email daily. I've encouraged them to set regular office hours, but everyone I've talked to on our staff says that regular hours won't serve our families and that they would rather be responsive at times that are more convenient for parents and students. All teachers have been provided with phone service that works via the internet. If they are unavailable, you can leave a voicemail. Here is a link to a directory of phone numbers. If you have trouble getting in touch with your child's teacher, call the principal. If you have trouble getting in touch with the principal, call me: 360.200.1459. I ask that you start with your child's teacher. They are in the best position to remove barriers for you.

Once again, on behalf of all of us, thank you for all you're doing. Thank you for staying in touch with us and allowing us to be helpful to you.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

In our work as educators, we draw on the work of Abraham Maslow to help us decide how to best help children and families. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs says that humans require that certain needs are met before they can get other needs met. This isn't surprising. If you don't have shelter and food, you're really not interested in reading a good novel. You want to be respected and valued by others but you're less concerned about respect when you're sick. You might be interested in volunteering in your community, but only after you know that its safe to do so. Maslow's hierarchy looks like this. The lower levels of the pyramid support meeting the needs at the higher levels.

When our staff are in touch with you, they'll be asking how you're doing. They're listening to hear if there are unmet needs that might get in the way of your child learning. If your family is having difficulties with food, shelter, clothing, safety, and health, you and your child aren't going to be interested in school until those needs are met. Our staff want to help you find resources to deal with those needs. Be sure to reach out to us and let us help you.

Our State Superintendent's office recently released guidance for what is expected of continuous learning for the rest of this school year. His office was very mindful of Maslow's pyramid and the fact that there is more going on for children and families right now than doing school work. His office has recommended maximum times that children should be expected to be engaged in school activities. We are following this guidance.

Compared to traditional school hours, this doesn't seem like much, but keep in mind that during a school day there are passing times, lunch, recess, time for taking attendance, transition times and a team of professionals who keep it all working smoothly. 

In this period, children who may already be missing friends and the comfort of a familiar routine, need time to engage in other things: play, family chores, babysitting younger siblings, etc. Keeping expectations reasonable is one of the ways we can build safety for children. 

Frequently Asked Questions

1. When is Graduation? We don't have a good answer for this yet. The Governor's order prohibits us from using our facilities until after June 19. There's no way to tell when social distancing will be lifted and it will be safe to gather. We are working with our seniors to create some solutions and we'll publish those when we have them arranged.

2. What will grades look like? Grades are used to communicate the level of individual student learning with the student, parent and other interested parties. It requires the ability to assess using evidence of student learning. That is very difficult right now. We still have some families that have not engaged with us at all and many students who have not submitting anything we can assess. Toledo Elementary (TES) is providing feedback on student learning. Toledo Middle and Toledo High (TMS and THS) are providing "Credit/No Credit" (C/NC) marks based on student evidence of learning. For students who may need traditional grades, we will work with them individually to get sufficient evidence to be able to provide those grades. All schools are working to create meaningful progress reports to deliver to families at the end of the school year.

3. How are you doing attendance? Guidance from the State is that attendance should be viewed as the degree to which a student is engaged with our program. Students who do not stay in contact or turn in work will be considered "absent". Our focus right now is on student learning. Attendance is one piece of evidence of student learning.

4. When is the last day of school? A school year is 180 days and 1080 hours. With the interruption, we can only claim to have taught 911 hours. In order to receive a waiver from the State for the shortfall, we need to have school underway for an additional 4 days. Those days are May 22 and 23 (Snow make up) and June 18 and 19. Those are days that students will be expected to be engaged in school. 

5. Is there a daily schedule for staff? Staff are available during regular school hours (generally 8-3 M-F) As I mentioned above, our staff are flexing their time so that they can be most responsive to the individual needs of families. Many of our teachers report responding to emails at 10 p.m. after leading online group chats at 10 a.m. I recommend email and telephone as the best ways to contact teachers. Some teachers at TES use Class Dojo which has been helpful in communicating with families. 

6. Will school start on schedule in September? There isn't enough information right now to say with any certainty what will happen over the Summer. We are planning to return to regular operations in September, but we are also preparing in the event that that isn't possible. 

7. Will meal service continue through the summer? No. TSD doesn't have the resources to continue this model of food service beyond June 20.

Do you have other questions? email me at crust@toledoschools.us. I'll add your questions and my responses to later blog posts.

Be well. Be wise.