3 minute read
Planning for the Coming Year
Preparing a nimble, responsive, student-centered learning program
When and how to return to school is a question that has been on the minds of many across the country and the world. As outbreaks gain momentum, including in North Carolina, and guidelines continue to be developed, our staff have developed preparations to best ensure the physical and socialemotional health and safety of our community, meet the personalized learning needs of each student, and provide culturally-affirming and responsive programming.
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Our Planning Process
From April through June, information was gathered. Staff reflected on insights gained through distance learning this spring. Students and families were also asked to provide feedback on our distance learning as well as to help shape our efforts for returning. A variety of external medical, public health, and educational resources were consulted, and trends in the data monitored.
A Campus Reopening Subcommittee of Friday Meeting created a set of baseline criteria for a continuous learning model which will allow us to be agile and responsive to changing public health needs. It leans on best practice recommendations that center on routine/structure, predictability, clarity of expectations, communication, connection, feedback, and choice. The continuous learning model has three modes: on-campus fully with COVID-19 safety protocols; hybrid learning with enhanced COVID-19 safety protocols; and virtual home based learning. Teaching and Learning Think Tanks spent two weeks working within and across units to create daily master schedules and consider how best to implement developmentally-appropriate safety requirements for students in each of the three modes. Throughout the year, flexible professional development days will be used to transition between modes, as needed, to provide as much continuity as possible.
Our overarching goal is to have students and staff safely learning on campus as consistently and in the greatest number possible. To do this, we determined that “layering” the following safety strategies would best support our goal.
• Staggering arrival times within units to support the conducting of daily health screenings using an all-school app and taking of temperatures.
• Maintaining consistency in the grouping of students throughout the day as often as possible (Student Cohorting).
• Reducing the size of student learning groups to 10-15 as often as possible.
• Repurposing and increasing the number of physical spaces used for teaching and learning to ensure appropriately sized classrooms that allow for recommended social distancing.
• Limiting student movement between classrooms whenever possible.
• Enhancing and monitoring student handwashing throughout the school day, maintaining social distancing of six feet as much as possible, and using face coverings as appropriate (required for all staff and MS and US students, and for LS students as appropriate; ES students will not be required to wear face coverings).
• Adding and enhancing room cleaning protocols during the day between periods and after school (including wiping down surfaces and use of UVC lighting technology to disinfect spaces).
• Encouraging the use of outdoor learning spaces for classroom activities.
Plan Refinement and Implementation Building on our plans and incorporating any relevant new guidance from state and local authorities, staff will continue to work this summer to further refine unit and class schedules and programming, to prepare the physical campus, and to finalize our safety protocols. In addition to the local and national workshops many staff members are engaging in over the next few weeks, all staff will return to work early in August for more than two weeks of professional development on effective virtual learning techniques, on optimizing use of our digital learning platforms to support continuity between modes of learning, on maintaining culturally-affirming and responsive classrooms, and on implementing new health and safety protocols. No matter which mode we may enter or move into through the school year, our work will continue to be centered on learning that fosters community, builds connections, and honors student needs.
— Karen Cumberbatch and Katherine Scott
