City Schools of Decatur has released an initial version of its virtual learning schedules for individual school groupings, Pre-K, lower elementary, upper elementary, middle school and high school. But as CSD’s Director of Community and Government Relations Courtney Burnett points out, all these schedules are fluid and will get updated frequently, particularly early on.
Parents will receive email updates but they should also check the web page https://www.csdecatur.net/Page/4271, under “CSD Documents.”
“We are growing into this and it’s changing every day,” Burnett said. “A lot of the updating will be based on feedback that we get. But this will be a lot more organized than what we had last spring, when we had to abruptly close the schools. We want to be as seamless as possible.”
The curriculum, particularly for older students, features a blend of synchronous learning, or live instruction and face-to-face interaction with teachers, with asynchronous learning, or self-paced, offline work.
The schedules for sixth graders and above are broken down into Monday/Thursday and Tuesday/Friday segments. Wednesday’s are reserved for what CSD is calling “Wellness Wednesdays,” likely including a series of sessions and activities on social, emotional, physical, spiritual and intellectual issues along with equity-related sessions. The precise format and instructors are still getting worked out.
CSD is asking parents to complete forms supplying information about technology, nutrition and support needs for individual families. You can find the form, which should be returned no later than August 5, at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeIh6mtGzfv8iWmfLPtiq2s4tXgyMZXptKuj6Et1befzT_DZA/viewform.
The district’s also holding a series of virtual town hall meetings via Zoom and limited to 500 people from August 3-12. A schedule is posted at https://www.csdecatur.net/opening2020.
Decatur schools open August 17 with entirely virtual instruction through at least Sept. 25.
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