Greetings Mather Families! By now you have heard that CPS released the Reopening 2020 plan for schools. I encourage you to take a look at it, we are including it in the newsletter below. It answers many questions that you might have. Knowing that some questions will still remain unanswered, I invited parents to a morning meeting today, thanks to all who attended. If you were unable to join us, I will be hosting another drop in meeting Tuesday 8/25 at 6pm. Please join me!

Mather teachers and staff have been working hard to prepare for a successful start to the school year for you and your student. Your success is important to us, we can't wait to get started! Enjoy these next couple of weeks and together we will be ready to go for the first day of school on September 8th!

Go Rangers!

Peter Auffant

Dear CPS Families,

Earlier this month, we announced that all Chicago Public Schools (CPS) students will begin the coming school year learning at home. Throughout our response to COVID-19, our top priority has been, and will continue to be, keeping our students and school communities safe. Today, we are sharing our Final Reopening Framework for the start of the 2020–21 school year. This framework gives CPS the flexibility to begin the school year learning at home and transition to hybrid learning once our public health experts determine it is safe to do so.

Mirroring a Normal School Day at Home

When students start school on September 8, their day-to-day experience will look very different than it did during remote learning last spring. We are using the insight we gained last year to provide our educators with new resources, tools, and expectations to ensure students continue to receive a high-quality education.

Families should expect an experience that mirrors what students what students would normally experience at school. Teachers will take attendance daily, use Google Suite tools to post work and host live instruction, and be available during school hours to provide students with feedback, support, and host parent conferences as needed. This will help teachers better understand individual student learning and provide support in a timely manner.

Students in kindergarten through grade 12 will engage in live, real-time instruction with their teachers for at least three hours per day, with high school students participating in live instruction for 80 percent of the school day. The remainder of the school day will be made up of independent learning and small group activities with other students through Google Education Suite. These changes will help provide critical structure in an age-appropriate manner and keep children engaged for the entirety of each school day. Expect to receive details of your child's schedule in the coming weeks.

In the coming days, CPS will be releasing additional resources for parents and students that will help our families prepare for learning at home during this first quarter. CPS will also begin introducing new virtual training sessions through our Parent Universities to help our families transition to online learning in addition to the courses available on the Office of Family and Community Engagement'sYouTube channel.

Please click on this link which will take you to Step 1 of the registration process:

Please attach each of the below forms to this google survey. Link to form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1O7r0kEredBpCBXDxTdpTi-xjd-PnV46iZoYhvjzoYzo/edit

1) Family Income Form: https://drive.google.com/file/d/10uDMOhkIeUd_TRUG-VIy2RpSymUsxP1p/view?usp=sharing

2) Emergency Contact Form:

English: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Vw4CVs-Z1pAinUehD18tJs-IZq0wchTT/view?usp=sharing

Spanish: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-B7uWBBe4grw_tx8N1es8DKglqK2dene/view

3) Media Consent Form:

English: https://drive.google.com/file/d/185ypsuwjItd5q6WPnrn020Dy6KmqP6Ab/view

Spanish:https://drive.google.com/file/d/1D2G5NNyyO3mHREbW7Fjoffi12pI7z4sN/view

4) Messaging Consent Form:

English: https://drive.google.com/file/d/12Hji2JZtLtYpmObEztcG2PNFGCw6U6xI/view

Spanish: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NxgZB-S3rPV_XRDPkqBZ1PvIFWwNSWQ9/view

Are you in need of a device to get started for the school year? Please fill out this survey so we can make sure that your student has a device for the fall!

https://forms.gle/Cz7d2orkS2m5VzRP9

Device Pickup and School Supplies Pickup will be the week of 8/31. A more detailed schedule will be sent out next week.

Mather High School is excited to offer Fall Sports. No experience is needed to join teams, just bring your excitement. Registration can be done on Mather's website http://www.matherhs.org/

under Athletics.

Boys and Girls Cross Country has started practice in the morning from 7:30AM until 9:30AM, the team meets outside in the parking lot off of California Ave. Any questions contact Coach Sullivan jtsullivan3@cps.edu

Girls Swim team will be starting Monday, August 24th, contact Coach Winberg for times and location ajwinberg@cps.edu

Girls Tennis will start on August 31st at 3:15pm at the tennis courts in Mather Park (California and Richmond). Any questions reach out to Coach LeComte kjlecomte@cps.edu or Coach Ryan sjryan1@cps.edu

To ensure every CPS student will have a high-quality digital experience learning at home this fall, CPS will provide 36,000 computing devices to children who still need one––in addition to the 128,000 devices distributed last spring. And through Chicago Connected, more than 100,000 families from limited-income backgrounds will be able to get high-speed internet at no cost. Families can check their eligibility and access their activation code by simply entering their child’s student ID number and birthdate into our eligibility tool at Chicago Connected. You can find your child’s student ID on their report or progress report. If you need assistance, please call your child’s school.

The State of Illinois is issuing all CPS students their own Pandemic EBT link card with up to $350 for its free lunch program.

The parent is the applicant - the student is the recipient. This card will be loaded monthly until CPS resumes its regular in house teaching schedule, post-emergency Shelter-In-Place restrictions.
The deadline to apply has been extended to August 31, 2020.

Links to the applications are here:

https://www.dhs.state.il.us/page.aspx?item=124142

The brochure is linked here:

http://www.dhs.state.il.us/OneNetLibrary/27897/documents/Brochures/4980.pdf

And...

IHDA (Illinois Housing Development Association) was given $396 million of CARES Act funding to provide affordable housing and emergency rental & mortgage assistance due to the COVID 19 crisis.

- Emergency Rental Assistance application period is August 10 - August 21

- Emergency Mortgage Assistance application period is August 24 - September 4

These application periods may close early if all funds have been distributed.

Here is a google folder with information and flyers in both English and Spanish. IHDA Funding

I also attached the ERA announcement and instructions for the application to this email.

Applications for rental assistance must be initiated online by tenants, and also require landlord participation to complete the process.

There are a number of community organizations listed in the flyers that are available to assist those w/o computer access.

More info at IHDA - Illinois Housing Development Authority

The census is VERY important to schools - it helps to make sure that we receive the appropriate financial allocations!

The link to the Census itself is https://my2020census.gov/ Anyone 15 and older can complete it for their household, and it's offered in 13 different languages on the homepage. Additional languages can be found at https://2020census.gov/en/languages.html

The Census matters for 2 main reasons:

1) Every 10 years, the Census is used to adjust representation in the U.S. House of Representatives. Illinois currently has 18 Representatives. If our population is undercounted compared to 2010, we lose some representation in Congress.

2) Census data is used to distribute $675 billion dollars per year for schools, hospitals, roads, social programs, and public safety.

All information shared with the Census Bureau is strictly confidential. For more information on confidentiality, click on the FAQ section at my2020census.gov