On Friday, the District Office sent out two emails with updates regarding the current school closure.

After receiving a few questions I would like to clarify a few things for everyone:

Although it is not recommended, the schools are currently open and available for us to go to our classrooms to login to our computers or pickup lessons and documents that we might need to work from home.

However, on Tuesday, March 24, the school and district offices will be closed to the public.

As of this date, the district does not want us working from our classrooms but we will still be able to go to our classrooms to retrieve necessary supplies. Beginning Tuesday, if you need to go to your classroom, please communicate your needs with your site principals.

For this first week of school closure, the expectation has been “that every teacher in the SMJUHSD will be reaching out and making contact with their students and providing some level of interaction and instruction.” Some of us are doing more and some are doing less, but everyone should be making some type of contact with their students. “Initially we wanted to simply encourage communication and encouragement to our students, when the closure window looked small. “

At this time, the district would like us to step it up a notch and start to “emphasize that learning expectations are increasing as the re-opening of school gets pushed off indefinitely … Begin the process as soon as you possibly can in communicating some more explicit expectations around your subject area curriculum.” This does not mean that we are making assignments mandatory or that we are grading these assignments. However, with the anticipation that schools will be closed for more than the originally planned three weeks, we all need to start emphasizing to our students the importance of them doing the work we assign as we begin to document their participation and their completion of assignments. In other words, begin to keep track of which students are responding to your communications and which students are doing the work you have assigned.

If you have questions about AERIES, Canvas, Zoom and other online learning possibilities, consider seeking help from one of our Tech TOSAs. They are all “rock stars” at this point, holding office hours and conducting online trainings. Check your email for updated training times and office hours.

Hope you and your families are all doing well.