Dear families,
I want to provide a few updates from the Board of Education meeting last night and a reminder about the transition form for families interested in changing their student’s learning pathway.
Enhanced distance learning days - November 23-24 and December 21-22
The Board of Education approved changing the two days leading up to Thanksgiving and winter breaks — Monday, November 23 and Tuesday, November 24, and Monday, December 21 and Tuesday, December 22 — to enhanced distance learning days for K-12 students in the school-based pathway. Families and students will be hearing from their school principals and teachers with more information about schedules for those days.
Our Nutritional Services department will be offering free meals and breakfasts for the following day for preorder and pickup on November 23 and 24. Families will also have the option of selecting a five-day meal box for pickup on Tuesday that would provide meals over Thanksgiving break. Please visit our website for pickup information, and to order your student’s meals.
Enhancements for hybrid learning
The Board of Education also approved on Wednesday evening the enhancements to our hybrid learning model. They also approved a timeline for implementation — the new hybrid schedule will begin after winter break. Every student will have three full days of structured and teacher-guided learning every week, with two days in-person learning, two days of remote learning and one day of enhanced distance learning. You can read more about this on our website.
We will be updating the hybrid learning schedule that’s on our website to balance the in-person learning days for each group, and we will be sharing that in December.
Families of our highest needs learners who are currently in our schools five days a week will receive separate communications regarding the dates in November and December and the new hybrid learning schedule for their students.
Matrices for school-based learning models
Last night, the Board of Education also approved the matrices developed by our Medical Advisory Team to help guide future decisions regarding learning models. You can review the matrix for enhanced distance learning and the matrix for all-in learning on our website.
Transitioning to or from the UA Online Academy
As a reminder, we are offering families the opportunity to consider a transition either to or from the Online Academy for the second half of the school year. Please complete this form by 11:59 p.m. Sunday, November 29 ONLY if you would like to request to change your student’s learning pathway (either to the Online Academy or to the school-based pathway). If you want to maintain your student’s current learning pathway, you do not need to complete this form or take any action.
All approved transition requests will take effect on January 5, 2021, following winter break, and any changes would be for the remainder of the school year. To learn more about the Online Academy, you can view the November 12 virtual information session by clicking here.
COVID-19 information
We continue to carefully monitor local health data, updates from Governor DeWine and our staffing situation, and we will provide updates as needed. We’ll update our COVID-19 data dashboard on Friday afternoon.
As I close, I want to share a message from Dr. Joe Gastaldo, an infectious disease specialist from our Medical Advisory Team.
Please take care and stay well.
Sincerely,
Paul Imhoff, Ed.D.
Superintendent, Upper Arlington Schools