May 19, 2020 update - Your Voice Matters feedback and planning process
Hello, everyone!
Today, we are embarking on a three-phase process to gather your feedback and create a plan for the upcoming school year. In Upper Arlington Schools, one of our mottos is your voice matters. And your feedback is a very important part of this process.
Please continue reading this email to learn more, or you can also watch my video update.
Phase one is the data phase — and we start that phase today by asking you about your experience with distance teaching and learning. We want to know what worked for you and your students, what didn’t work and what ideas you have for any distance learning that might be needed in the future.
Next week, the data phase will continue with another feedback and input opportunity focused more directly on plans for the upcoming school year.
We will also be asking our students and our staff to share their thoughts on distance learning and plans for the 2020-2021 school year. Students in middle school and high school will be receiving a student survey link on distance learning in their email later this week, and students in grades 3-5 will be receiving a single, shorter survey next week via their parents’ email. Please encourage your students to share their thoughts on their experience, too!
And although this will be a rapid design process, we are also going to fit in some focus groups for students, families and staff. Your voice matters, and we are going to do everything we can to get a wide range of data.
The data phase will be followed by the design phase. We’ll be using all of the feedback we gather during the data phase to design a plan for the 2020-2021 school year and any future distance learning needs. The third and final phase is the decisions phase, and that’s when I will be making a recommendation regarding next year to our Board of Education.
The process will feel very familiar to you, but it will be much more rapid than our planning processes of the past. We’ll have three weeks to gather data and two weeks to design prototypes — and this will all culminate with my recommendation to the Board of Education in late June.
Like all other school districts in Ohio, we will work within the framework of guidelines from state and local health officials for the fall. We've all seen what a fluid situation this has been, and we will need to continue to be flexible as these things may continue to change.
I know this is an incredibly busy time of year for everyone, but I encourage you to take a few moments and share your thoughts on the first feedback opportunity of this process. Remember - your voice matters!
Click here to take the family distance teaching and learning survey
Have a great week, and as always, go Bears!
Sincerely,
Paul Imhoff, Ed.D.
Superintendent, Upper Arlington Schools