Colrain Central School News

mailto:alooman@mtrsd.org

What a very strange year 2020 has been. I've seen several hilarious memes expressing some of our deepest feelings about all of the events of this year. The one thing that has become abundantly clear to me throughout this whole year is the importance of connection and community. The challenges we've faced this year have been huge, but so have some of the joys we've faced as we've had more time to reconnect with our families and appreciate a little bit slower pace for a bit.

This is certainly not how I anticipated welcoming you all back to a new school year! I'm sure you have many, many questions and concerns....I do too! I encourage you to ask them and while I may not have answers, I'm happy to try and problem-solve with you. I am happy to have your family as a part of our school community this year and look forward to serving you, and your children, albeit in new and different ways. Please do not hesitate to reach out to me at any time.

I am so grateful for your patience as we navigate through this time together.

In the interest of the health and safety of all our staff and students, the school committee voted last night to begin the school year in a remote learning model to be reassessed by Nov. 24th. At that time, if the metrics allow, we can begin phasing in a hybrid model. We recognize that this presents some significant obstacles to families including inferior internet access, childcare issues, concern about educational progress, and financial constraints. We are working on problem-solving those in a way that will allow us to safely support families and students while still trying to minimize the risk of spreading the virus.

The remote learning that will be happening this fall will be different from the emergency remote learning that took place in the spring. This is the plan for at least the start of the academic year. Attendance will be taken and student work will be graded. We recognize that things were very challenging in the spring when we were all operating in "crisis" mode. We are working with teachers to learn more tools and platforms and how to support students and families in a remote model. While the exact details of what your child's school day will look like are yet to come, it will include both synchronous (live, in real time online) and asychronous (can be done at any time offline) elements.

The question I have been getting asked most frequently is about preschool. At this time, we are still planning on having a preschool program. We are still working out the details of this and what that might look like....can we have students come together occassionally for outside activities? Can they come to meet their teacher? How do 3 and 4 year olds learn in a remote model when socialization is the greatest lesson to learn during preschool? While I don't have answers yet, please know that we are working on it.

The single greatest barrier to remote learning in our town is the lack of adequate internet access. I will be reaching out to you in the next week to find out what the specific barriers your family faces with respect to internet access. We intend to go family by family to see what we can do to help get folks connected. We are also looking into setting up internet hubs (in buildings, not parking lots) if we are unable to get homes connected.

We will also be finding out what devices students have and what they will need in order to engage in remote learning. We have ordered additional chromebooks and have a goal of having one chromebook per student. However, the chromebooks we ordered are being held up at customs so we are not sure if we will be able to provide one per student from the very beginning.