PSMS 278

Dear PS/MS 278 Families,

While at a distance, you and our students’ health and well-being continue to be at the forefront of our minds this week:

— To our graduating students, our staff are continuing to think about you and plans are in the works to honor and celebrate you during this important milestone. Ms. Sanchez, Mr. Irizarry, and I look forward to joining the 8th grad classes next week. We understand the loss you are feeling and planning for you is one of our highest priorities!

— To our parents, parenting is never easy but we’re all facing new challenges ourselves. If your children are acting out, it’s entirely normal! Their feelings of stress, anxiety, and loss are just as real as ours, though may manifest itself in very different ways (e.g. refusing to eat anything but macaroni and cheese or fighting with siblings). Child Mind Institute is offering parenting workshops tailored to COVID 19 through Facebook live. The topics range from self-care, to supporting with remote learning, to behavior management. They have recorded webinars as well as workshops every day at 10am and then 4:30pm: www.facebook.com/ChildMindInstitute/live/.

–To any families needing support connecting to any social services, please continue to reach out to us! Attached is an excellent resource for accessing support for a wide range of topics including affordable housing, domestic violence, food banks, health care, immigration services, and utilities.

— Starting Monday, we’ll kick off our 278 Spirit Week with “Morale Monday.” Show us how you are supporting and shouting out our first responders, healthcare, and other service workers! To participate and get directions, join our “#We Love 278 Self-Care” Google Classrooms.” Here is a reminder of the Google classroom links:

•Students in Grades K-2: hh3lano
•Students in Grades 3-5: kpqcdw6
•Students in Grades 6-8: cff375a

Additionally, I wanted to provide you with an overview of how our remote learning has evolved and next steps we are taking to be responsive to feedback from students, staff, and families. Our vision for teaching and learning via remote learning aligns with an asynchronous teaching model, meaning teachers post recorded lessons and assignments that students complete at different times. This structure flexibly allows all of our students to access teaching & learning at a time that meets their family’s needs. Thus far, our work has been focused creating a Google Classroom for each class/teacher, improving the organization of the classrooms for easier access to learning materials, and expanding our staff’s electronic “toolkit” to provide recorded instruction to support student’s ability to complete aligned tasks. The next critical phase to this work is to ensure all classes also have “live” teaching and learning experiences as a supplement to the asynchronous model. These live experiences include teacher office hours and opportunities for targeted small group or individual instruction, as needed.

In closing, you must know that we really miss you. We miss seeing the “spark”, when the lightbulb clicks on and one of our kids understands something they’ve been struggling with. We miss the laughter in our hallways and the messy fun that is recess. And we miss being able to share a quick hug, high-five, or smile of encouragement. We continue to look for ways to replicate these experiences during the school closure and are grateful for your continued partnership!

Be well,

Bryanna Velazquez