Discovery Charter School Phoenix Campus & District Office

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Presentation on COVID plans for Discovery Charter Schools

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Superintendent Debby Perry and Director Miki Walker discuss plans for COVID for Discovery Charter Schools

Show Transcript

hello my name is Debbie Perry and I'm the superintendent and executive director of the Phoenix campus and I'm Mickey Walker and the director at the Falcon campus here today to talk to you a little bit about our reopening plans we presented this at our last board meeting that was held in July but we wanted to make sure that everybody had the opportunity to hear from us directly on our it's important for us to both campuses understand and the reasoning behind what we're doing and what exactly it is we are doing at this time so a always our priority is the health and safety of the entire School community of students families our teacher and our staff Nick and I have most of the summer attending webinars and looking at resources and getting different guidebooks from the state county and local levels there have been times when we were looking at One Direction changing very rapidly in our environment and we're trying to stay on top of everything again these are just a few of us that we have over the past few weeks and there is norplant Ennis environment we are tasked with following the most restrictive guidelines right now the most restrictive guidelines are coming from the governor and those are that we staying distant learning so we need to stay here until we've been off the monitoring list for 14 days we're not sure when that will be, the staff has worked very hard over summer starting in June to prepare for in distance learning we felt that was the direction we are heading and so that's where the bulk of our time has been is making sure that we have moved out of crisis mode and that distance learning that will enable all students to learn as many of you know we sent out a few surveys since last spring this was our most recent in these are the results of the snapshot of the data that we collected majority what campus has responded and if you can see it is roughly 50/50 across both campuses some wanting distance and others wanting the hybrid model distance to support Were Meant to support our rationale for waiting on what to do so we appreciate everyone taking the time to take the surveys we also have been asking our staff as you can understand and with such a large staff across both campuses it's important that our staff feels safe as well and so again we do have a large number of Staff members who are not comfortable coming back so this of course was additional information W9 for consideration of distance learning so I just got worried we have three phases knocked out for education for our students this year play as one would be distance learning and that is the face that we are going to be starting the year off in these two would be a hybrid model and phase three was the one we most look forward to and that's when we're all together and Arceus one we will have daily morning meeting so you should expect that school will start at the Times given for your students at your school they'll be a tennis monitoring will be making sure it's not just that they're in school as that they're engaged and so they need to follow along time to class but also they need to complete horse work so we can make sure and if for some reason they're not Mickey Mouse how to find out why and how we can better support and we're going to talk to him a few minutes more about this plan and how it will look exactly what we wanted in place of face to hybrid model we are right now the way that it was looked alike is that also trains for teachers to check to prepare for their other days of teaching during those days that they were on these three would be back in person there may be some safety procedures in place. setting up on what's happening at that time around so as I mentioned we're going to go a little bit more in-depth now about our face one just this morning 77 is a trailer bill that was part of the budget that was approved and in there is states that California schools hired to provide a hundred and eighty days in destruction or 175 for charter school this is a regulation that has been in effect before we have a hundred and eighty days instruction in our current calendar that number has not changed in that That Remains the Same different this year was in distance learning is the minimum number of instructional minutes per day is there a bike race and highlighted yellow box what it was previously and the adjustments that were made these were made part by 80-77 and as far as instructional minutes and give it to us as the requirements meal services will be provided for those who need more information on that will be so if we're going to be doing just this morning then there are certain things that we have to do and that is again to track and monitor their engagement no longer just about attending it's about making sure that the kids are in so we'll be keeping track of how awesome the kids jump to school what they're doing our teachers will be regularly to make sure that your progressing academically also requires that so surveys are going out to both campuses at this time we want to make sure that you follow and that you throw out those very important to us to know who doesn't have the technology at home to complete its for us to provide and we are working on a procedure engaged in for absence for more than three school days are 60% of instructional days a week again we encourage that you set up a place in your home for school work and that you get your kids up and ready for school so to go against a little further into What discovery is looking to offer in Phase when we again took a lot of input and feedback from the parent communities on both campuses as well as the staff and so these are just highlights of what Debbie and I are feel were important aspects of the discovery Phase 1 distance learning plan we definitely heard you loud and clear that we want to offers a much more robust and structured distance learning plan we do meet or exceed instructional minute requirements all subjects will be taught Wednesday's like Debbie mention show me used for teacher planning as well as teacher office hours to support communication between we had made the decision across both campuses to use Google Classroom as our main assignment classroom level communication but teachers will use Google classroom and have been trained or in the process of getting trained we are providing we are looking to provide tiered intervention and support for students with 504 who we are identifying to have challenges under distance learning and like Debbie mentioned the attendance and engagement accountability is going to be a huge part of distance learning one thing I do when I mention is that parent partnership remain a vital aspect of our program and we're currently working with PSC to brainstorm ways with that might look like just have had input and they're also giving us ideas and now it's station that Debbie and I are constantly having and then going back to Wednesday's afternoon will be used for staff development staff meeting days like how it was used when you're on this is just the learning scheduled at distance learning schedule at a glance the top part of the table reflects Monday Tuesday Thursday Friday the highlighter is something we wanted to bring your attention to there's two aspects that I want to kind of highlight where it says teacher-led content areas. Is where the teacher is providing the classroom teachers providing direct instruction so if you look at TK and Kinder Kinder there it's a 60 minutes or an hour that means the teacher will be providing direct instruction older children an hour for 60 minutes. It could be 20 minute break providing supplemental learning activities that could work it could be enrichment selective and this is for one day so these are days instructional minute that brings us to still looking at TK to get their daily instructional minutes provided by Discovery would be roughly 3 hours now and speaking too many of our teachers it sounds like some teachers are going to be flexible. They may go over on some occasions depending on what the assignments are and if you look at the red column that is what every was pointing out in the earliest wide which is those are the required instructional I'm not set by Discovery but sit by the state again if you looks compared the Green in the red we are definitely meeting or exceeding for all of our students and then one last thing I want to point out on this chart is the wellness means the far-right those while we can't count them as instructional minutes those we want to make sure parents families are aware of and taking the time for lunch recess break and so we were how to make sure you guys were also incorporating that as you were planning the days it's and teachers are also using this guideline to create schedules which you will hear from from each individual teacher in the coming days driving it w wanted to point out and let him know I just want to assure you that on Wednesdays as soon as they offer the kids Ashley days a week in their morning meeting time in a checking with your teacher they may have been assigned to do something on that day meet with a teacher or the teacher may have open Office hours the purpose of not being scheduling so much in for teachers to handle the needs of those who are struggling as well as plan for future do they still are required to have the same amount of minutes so you will see more information about enrichment Stewie so Jen on this document which has been published on the website this just goes into further detail what an instructional day might look like and so this is an example for TK to first grade teacher-led learning on the far second column on the left or 60 Minutes the suggestions for teachers of her teacher-led learning might be focusing on essential and relevant learning activities for stew the really they're still focused on what they would be teaching even if we were in person how ever again these are guidelines for a teacher's and they've had access to this and have been planning over the summer the learning and supplements activities again these are just suggestions it could be quiet reading independent reading or writing board games puzzles a lot of our teachers might be creating menus arts and crafts Richmond since electives would fall under hair and then again the wellness needs these are just ideas that were encouraging families obviously during the time questions haven't been able to be on 8 in recessed maybe we'll walk together go on bike ride or any indoor outdoor play really and then this is just a snapshot for our older grades Again Sam has a bullet points or developmentally appropriate for 6th grade PE will still be led by your teachers again our plan is to support students in progressing their content knowledge in Mastery so while in the spring we were working from the mindset of more of an emergency in crisis mode the idea behind this plan is to create a robust learning plan so that our students progress as they would in person so how instructional minutes are measured depends on the motive instructions so Debbie and I have been like she mentioned working with many different organizations paying attention to the legal requirements for distance learning the minutes based on the time value of assignments determined by the classroom teacher is that means that when your teacher assigns your child and assignment it's very important that they turn it in the teacher will work with your child as well as the parents to make sure that they are understanding the content as well as turning it in but the reason behind using Google Classroom is so that we're able to document work and collect it in classroom if we were to move to a hybrid or when we move to a hybrid minutes will be based on time spent under immediate physical supervision and control of a certificate so if we moved her hybrid the time your child or children are on campus those would be considered part of in classroom minutes for the days that they're on campus as well as off-campus we would just add the two together what was starting in Phase 1 and we don't know how long that will last and we wanted to make sure that you knew that we are still continuing the conversation about moving to face which is the hybrid model at some point we will move to this model we just don't know when it will happen and it will be based upon the guidelines from the state speaking of the state guidelines of right now 80-77 which again is that trailer bill that came along with the budget from Gavin from Gavin Newsom it says that should hold person instruction to the greatest extent possible we need to do that right now again we have to follow the the guidelines of the most restrictive and the most restrictive is to be at distance learning however when we move to the spa we will be looking at what is to the greatest extent possible mean for discovery so many different things that could look like and Mickey and I have been working along with staff to have some different considerations of what this might look like we might put together some stable cohorts and then we would have some attendance children possibly we could do it but we could do it by their risks pictures of content delivery so all of these things are still being decided and so we will then look to what is the greatest possible mean for Discovery students so in person the county guidelines the current County guidelines that have been provided to us show that we have to ensure that everybody stays safe and again that's our highest priority and so what does that look like in a classroom so right now what it looks like is stable much smaller class sizes because we do have to follow the guidelines of mask wearing and distance keeping our distance from each other and so in our classrooms are not able to 22 children or 27 children in the sizes and keep them all six feet apart so we would have to split up the classes and it would just be determined Again by one of those cool horse look like for junior high and high school kids like adults and so we need to make sure that they are having the distance requirements and wearing the mask all of them all of the requirements state the teacher should be 6 feet away from transmission perhaps we would need to have seating assignments where students with sit to make sure that they are keeping their distance from each other as you can imagine was nearly 600 students at each this is going to be something that we're going to have to work hard to figure out how to accomplish and so that we are asking ourselves now and that we are working on for when that day comes when we're told we need to move. discussion of what the hybrid model could look like we did hold it optional staff meeting mid-july and we had great attendance across both campuses and one of the things that you and I wanted our teachers to consider our two who were the extreme scenario is under the hybrid model what does hybrid model look like with one teacher on your grade level team who is the fully is who is fully had distance learning teacher going back to the survey that I discussed the end explained in the beginning we had 27 teachers who were not comfortable being on campus so we really it's very important to Debbie and I to include our staff in a conversation and so we brought this to them on the other extremely wanted them to consider what does hybrid model look it was only one teacher on your team who's able to teach in person we rely heavily again our teachers are great out-of-the-box thinkers very creative and so their input is very important to us be coming back to the hybrid model and continue these discussions with staff and so that as we're making decisions about what this could look like their input can be taken into consideration also ask them to re-evaluate a few things under the hybrid model to consider what their classroom would look like reducing unnecessary high-touch Services maximizing space or social distancing reducing hard to clean materials Services you know it's a challenge for many of our students are family teachers at Discovery because we focus on Hands-On learning so you can imagine this was something that we wanted to give our teachers enough time to really reflect on and thing not a hybrid model we also will be asking them for their input on drafting cohort and will be planning accordingly so we're committed to you our community members to our staff into our students and when we feel that hybrid model is something that we need to move into or is being dictated to us as that that is the best thing in the government says we need to do it too greatest extent possible then we will be at that time you will be asked if you would like to continue and distance learning or if you want to move to the hybrid model and you would be making a commitment for the remainder of 2020-2021 school year to put together our groups and to start telling them this would not be something that would be an overnight decision this would be a statistic then we would put together the plan take it to the board for approval and then move forward on it so it would not be a something that you wouldn't have advanced yourself so we just want to let you know that these are some of the goals some of those things were still continuing to work on this is definitely a work in progress and we were seeking input from you from the kids from all of our community members just to make sure that we are doing things are equity-based and needs of our diverse community so we will be continuing to hold meetings and to ask for surveys so watch your parents for those meetings where you can give your input and let us know what you think might work best or how we can best provide the education that your individual student we're working with PSC groups Mick and I are meeting with Sam we have over the summer and we continue to meet with them because we want to make sure that we can find ways that we can continue community and he's very important to us Discovery is built on that philosophy about everybody needs to be a part of the equation and so it's really important that we can't help that. Community it's also very important to us that we use equity when we're thinking about how we're going to move forward and what that means for all of the students and the families so it's really important that we see from your eyes what is most important to you and what you feel that works best in archery and will continue to seek input from parents students and staff Mickey was there anything else you wanted to ask all right so all of this information has been provided to you previously in a slide deck but we just wanted to give you a little bit more personal view of what we're seeking and we're we're we're looking forward to welcoming you the school as a reminder please look for those back to school packets and make sure that you thought all of your back to school forms it's important that we ensure that we know who's on campus and what's happening at school even if you are in distance and we look forward to seeing you at our first date. So we hope to see you then and we want to thank you so much for being a part of art by thank you