April 9, 2020
Dear Parents/Guardians,
Greetings from Arcola Jr./Sr. High School. I hope that everyone is doing well and staying safe and healthy. After a week of remote learning, I wanted to reach out to all families to let you know how things are going and to provide some updates to our expectations.
First off, our students are doing an outstanding job of checking in for attendance each day and logging into Google Classroom to complete their assignments. Our average attendance for the first 5 days of remote learning was 95.3%. The freshmen led the way at 98.7% and the seniors were a close second at 97.7%. As a staff, we would like to THANK all families for the support you are providing your children at this time to make remote learning a positive experience. If you ever have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to reach out to your child’s teacher via email or call the school and leave a message.
As expected with anything new, adjustments must be made along the way to ensure that we are providing the best possible experience for our students, while at the same time ensuring they are staying engaged in continuous learning. The following is a list of important information to keep in mind as we move forward with remote instruction next week:
Students should check in for attendance through TeacherEase between 5:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. each day. Automated calls will be sent out at 12:30 to any parent whose child has not checked in. We realize that sometimes a student may forget to check in for attendance. If that happens, please either call the office and leave a message or email Ms. Diaz at (ddiaz@arcolaschools.com) The office staff will continue to make personal phone calls to the parents of students who are not checking in on a regular basis.
Students will be expected to log into Google Classroom each day and engage in the learning activity. All proof of learning or assignments will be due by 9:00 a.m. the next day or by the teacher’s assigned due date. The teachers are keeping the learning activities very simple and showing proof of learning is often quite simple for the students.
In order to better keep track of students who are not engaged in learning or students who are simply not doing any of the assignments, we are making some changes to the way we record assessments in the grade book. Please read this section carefully.
All students will have the opportunity to redo, make-up, or try again to complete and show progress on work assigned during remote learning. Many times, this will occur after receiving feedback from teachers. When students redo an assignment, they will always receive the highest grade achieved on any attempt.
The final semester grade for all students will either be equal to their 3rd quarter grade, higher than their 3rd quarter grade, or designated as an “Incomplete” for the semester if a student does not adequately engage in learning during this time.
Missing assignments will now be coded as “0M”. What does this mean?
The assignment is missing or incomplete and CAN be made up for full credit at any time without penalty.
The grade of “0” for the assignment will be used to calculate the current average grade. This will allow both students and parents to see how grades can be affected if assignments are not completed. If at the end of the quarter, a student has several missing assignments and has not been engaged in learning, the student will receive an “INCOMPLETE” for the semester and will be required to complete the missing assignments when regular school resumes.
It is important to remember that students who receive low grades on assignments will always have the opportunity to redo the assignment for a better grade. The district will make every effort to ensure that the grading practices used by the teachers is based on the principle of doing no educational harm to any students.
Most importantly, don’t forget that school is not in session for students on Friday or Monday. Students will not need to check in for attendance on these days and teachers will not be providing any new instruction. We want the students to enjoy their 4-day break as scheduled.
In closing, I wish you and your family the very best. Please remember to reach out to us if you need anything. We are here to help and support our students and families during this unprecedented time.
Sincerely,
Mrs. Sigrist