There is No Finish Line

Learning About Saints

The original title of this blog post was "Preparing to Go Virtual Again." But, doesn't that title give you a sick feeling? The sad thing is we ARE preparing to go virtual again. We spent so much time since the spring shutdown getting ready for school to reopen that we have not spent but a minute planning for another shutdown. Not planning for a future shutdown as of now has completely changed. We were super-well prepared for the last shutdown, but we plan to be even more for a next possible shutdown. So, if you are wondering what fills our days at St. Ann besides the usual, everyday, procedural-laden, Covid-19 form of education; well, getting ready for a shutdown is what we are doing.

Reading Time

So, why did I change the title of this blog post? In our virtual principals' meeting yesterday, one of the principals talked about how everything we do in education typically has a finish line. With this pandemic, there is no finish line. Not having a finish line causes stress and anxiety with many folks. Nationally, quite a few teachers are experiencing these in big ways, which is leading to an educational exodus that will have negative affects on learning for generations to come.

People can endure just about anything if they know where the finish line is. With what's happening, there is no finish line. The finish line might be this fall. Many have heard it said that this will all end on Election Day. I am not a conspiracy theorist, at least not yet. So, I don't buy that. The finish line might be the fall of 2021. No one knows. And, this is going to increase stress and anxiety levels. Bottom line is there is no finish line. There is no end in sight. How many of you keep forgetting what day it is? Some folks have to remind themselves we are nearing the end of July, I mean August. 

Writing Time

So, we are preparing for what we can prepare for and putting the finish line in God's hands. We are going to put our stress and anxiety in His hands as well. Personally, I'm going to not question so much. I'm not going to cause others more stress and anxiety by questioning everything.

I mentioned in my blog post "Honey in My Lemonade" that this has been one of the best summers of my life. The best summers of my life were the summers my family spent on Santos Beach in Brazil, my native country. My plan is to have one of the best autumns of my life in 2020. Every day will be me enjoying Santos Beach. Instead of seeing the end of this pandemic as the finish line, my finish line is going to be the end of every day when I go naninha (Portuguese for night-night). The race will start again the next morning. 

Peaceful Protest

Here's how we are planning for a possible shutdown. Led by Annmarie Ghio, every teacher is designing a shutdown plan. Yes, they are putting their plans in writing because we want to be ready to distribute the shutdown plans if it happens. Their plans will list all the websites we will be using (FACTS, blogs, IXL, ReadWorks, Be My Disciple, Google Classroom, Seesaw and about ten more) and where to find your child's passwords to log-in to these sites. The plans will even have a daily academic schedule for your child to follow.

We have spent the last few days getting all students and educators registered with Houghton-Mifflin-Harcourt's Journeys for English Language Arts (ELA). This is the new ELA curriculum we purchased with online components in case of the dreaded shutdown. The online components of Sadlier Math have already been put into use. This is the updated Math curriculum we purchased for virtual learning. We have added science and social studies to IXL language arts and math. We are currently exploring other programs such as BrainPOP that teachers can utilize to help students.

Learning About Saints

It is bizarre to think that while the school year moves forward in-person for 90% of the students (10% of the students are virtual), we are preparing to go 100% virtual just in case. I am hoping that all the preparation for virtual learning is done for naught. If we are able to go live all year without a shutdown, think we will have to throw a massive end of the school year party for everyone at St. Ann. If that were to happen, then that massive party will be our finish line. Until then, I'm just going to jog and not sprint to the finish line because we are only in week three of thirty-seven.

Will we be prepared if we go 100% virtual again? There is no doubt we will be prepared academically. Mentally will any of us be prepared? Hopefully, we will never have to answer that question.

God bless you,
Didier Aur, Principal
St. Ann Catholic School

The 2020-21 School Year Has Begun!

One week down with 37 more weeks to go for the 2020-21 school year. This week was just week-one of what could possibly be the toughest school year we will ever face in our lifetime. Yes, this week was not a full-week being that it was a four-day school week with a half-day thrown in the mix, and PK and Kinder had staggered schedules the first week.

The first week had many distractions, like the grass cutting crew deciding that the first day of school would be the best day to cut the grass. AT&T had issues with the internet on the first day back, which continued for the whole first week. This made it especially difficult for our online educators working with the online students. The internet connection kept dropping, but everyone stayed persistent and it all worked out.

Morning drop-off worked perfectly! A special shout-out to May Young and George Dhuy for volunteering for the third year in a row to help the students at morning drop-off. The afternoon pick-up had a hitch in its giddy-up, but Sara Westrich and Angela de Jong came up with solutions and quickly communicated the solutions with everyone. By Thursday and Friday, the afternoon pick-up was over by 3:06 pm, and will only get better quickly.

The temperature checks have worked well with all the specials teachers stepping up to lend a hand to help the regular classroom teachers with getting the students ready for the day. All temperatures are recorded and those records are sent to the office so that we can keep a complete temperature log of all the students for the year. All staff members have their temperatures taken and recorded daily as well.

The students are doing a great job wearing face masks and face shields. Thank you parents for working with your child(ren) on wearing the masks. Your work has made a big positive difference. We have learned that students who wear glasses are having problems with their glasses fogging up when wearing the face masks. When they wear the face shields, they have no problem with their glasses fogging up.

We had no idea how this week would go, but as I said before, we have been planning this week since March 16th. This week went better than we planned for. Then again, we planned for the worst. If you plan for the worst and the worst doesn't happen, then that's a good thing.

Since this was the week we have been working towards since the middle of March. We are happy how week-one turned out. With all that we have had to overcome, this past week was a success.  The students came back to school after five months of being gone from this building.  This week has been as close to normal as life has been for all of us since March 16th.

Thank you to Christy Matlock, James Newell, and Lori Morgan for designing and building the plexiglass shields used in the PK classroom. Blake Matlock participated in the build as well. Christy and James also build the partitions in the Covid-19 room. Cannot believe that schools now have Covid rooms. Crazy. Gotta do what you gotta do to follow the guidelines.

Annmarie Ghio built partitions in her 3rd grade classroom as well to keep the students safe. Karen Otts is building partitions for E-Care. Lots of creativity and hard work going into keeping the students as safe as possible.

The middle school lockers have been moved/separated to help with social distancing. When middle schoolers have to change classrooms, we are utilizing outdoor entrances as much as possible for two reasons. The first is to help with social distancing by not having the students in the hallways and the second is for a mask break. If they are outside and practicing social distancing, they can remove their masks. Took lots of practice to figure out the movement from classroom to classroom. Think we have it figured out now.

The State Department of Education has provided us with five more thermometers and roughly 6,000 disposal masks. If a student or staff member needs an extra mask, we have plenty. The masks have been distributed to all the classrooms.

We have made good use of the washer and dryer donated to the school. We are constantly washing the towels we use for cleaning the classrooms. That worked out well and helps hold down the cost of cleaning supplies.

The hallways from one end of campus to the other have a dot on every sixth floor tile (floor tiles are 12 inches long) on both sides of the hallway for the students to stand on. There is never any doubt about how far six feet is. If you are not on a dot, then you are too close to the next person and there is a good chance I will be yelling at you. Sorry, that won't be a time for me to be Mr. Nice Guy. And, that's when positive motivation and reinforcement go out the window. Safety first, your feelings second.

For all the spending related to Covid-19, we have added an expense line to the budget for Covid-19. Wish we had a Covid-19 revenue line to go with that expense line. Unfortunately, there is no Covid-19 revenue. All schools and businesses everywhere are experiencing the same thing. 

Now, we focus on week two. We cannot get complacent. We have to stay vigilant. When I say we, I mean all staff, students, and parents. We also need to stay home if we are not feeling well. We cannot jeopardize anyone's health by not being honest with how we feel. All it takes is for one person to not follow protocol to cause harm to themselves and others. An outbreak of Covid-19 can happen. If we follow protocol and health guidelines, chances are an outbreak won't happen.

Please follow all health guidelines, stay safe, and keep the school in your prayers.

God bless you,

Didier Aur, Principal

St. Ann Catholic School

 

Honey in My Lemonade

Setting Up The 1st Grade Classroom

My apologies for not blogging for the past couple few weeks. My time has been spent figuring out and planning how we are going to open school on August 11th. Along with my team at St. Ann, I've actually enjoyed putting this huge unpredictable puzzle together only to dismantle sections of the puzzle and start again. The way I see things, I can either be frustrated and negative by our circumstances or as Stephanie Nichols said, "make lemonade" with the lemons we've been given. My reaction to this situation is to add a little honey in my lemonade.

I know many of you are scared and filled with anxieties. I understand. I really do. I've never put in so much of my life into my work as I have since the middle of March. Life is tough, but it is still great. I have had many conversations with many parents who are super-concerned about the 2020-21 school year. Please remember that I am here to help you. I don't have all the answers, but I do have some. I will do my best to answer your questions. And, if I don't know, I'll tell you that I don't know and do my best to figure out the right answer. Unfortunately, the way things are changing, the right answer now maybe something completely different next week. Crazy stuff.

The most important people in my life besides my family are my students and staff members who are entrusted to my care. The last thing I want is for anything negative to happen to my babies from PK3 up to the most senior members of the St. Ann staff. They are all my babies and my job is to take care of each one of them. That's why we are planning and re-planning every step of re-opening. You can only imagine how many times I've played the re-opening in my head. I think everyone at St. Ann has been doing the same. Every time I think I have most things figured out, someone comes up with a questions and my honest response is: "I haven't even thought about that." Ask Jennifer Burnett. She is usually the one asking me the questions. And, know this week's in-service is all about being ready for August 11th.

Setting Up a Middle School Classroom

As for the first week of school, I'm not concerned about the academic piece of school. I don't care if any school work is done. I'm concerned about the safety piece and making sure we get things right. Drop-off, pick-up, traffic flow in the parking lot, traffic flow in the hallways, which entrances and exits will be used, masks, social distancing, teacher rotation, student rotation, sanitizers, cleaning the classrooms, lunch, lunch clean up, temperature taking, updating Covid-19 policies...

As bad as things are right now, times have been worse before and there will be worse times in the future. Life as we know it is different and difficult but life is still great. This has been one of the best summers of my life, and I'm hoping the same for this fall. I'll be sad when this summer ends. Yet, I'm excited for the new school year.

Here is list of information we all need to share.

Prayer:
Please pray for a safe school year not only for St. Ann Catholic School but for everyone everywhere. We are going to need prayers. Hope our Guardian Angels are on full alert and our prayer warriors out there are praying for us. Few things are as comforting as folks praying for us.

Safety and Good Health:
The single most important thing we can do to keep everyone safe and healthy is for us to be honest. Sounds crazy doesn't it. But, if we are honest, there is a very small chance for transmission of Covid-19 at our school. If your child doesn't feel good, keep him/her at home. If they have been exposed, keep him/her at home. A little sniffle, cough, low-grade fever, upset stomach, body ache, and/or just not feeling good, STAY HOME! In the past, any of these symptoms were often overlooked with a "you'll get over it." That can no longer happen. Now, we are jeopardizing everyone if we are not honest about these symptoms. Schools and day cares that have followed all the rules have had no problems. All it take is one person ignoring the rules and regulations to cause a lot of damage. Whether you think we are overreacting to Covid-19 or not, when it comes to the health of our children, we all need to follow the rules. Be honest!

Online students:
Mrs. Bannister will work with the nine online students in PK and 1st grade. Mrs. Thomas will work with the five online students in 2nd and 3rd grade. Mrs. Wendenon will work with the six online students in 4th and 5th grade. There are only three middle school online students, one in each middle school grade. The five middle school teachers will work with those three students instead of having one designated teacher. The next step is to work out schedules for when those students will be online with the teachers. We will work that out during in-service. These three educators are going to follow the regular classroom lesson plans, work closely with the classroom teachers, and do their best to keep the students as close as possible educationally with the students in class. We know from past experience the online students won’t get everything they normally would if they were in the regular classroom setting. One of our goals is to include/keep connected the online students with the regular classroom. Not sure what that will look like, but we have some ideas.

Mrs. Thomas will still work with the LIFE students and Mrs. Wendenon the SPARKS students.

Lunch:

For the time being, students need to bring their lunch to school. We have worked on some lunch options for the students. That's for another time. Let's get lunch in the classrooms done properly before going there. In the past, parents and grandparents have always been welcomed to join us for lunch. For now, that will not be allowed. Hope we can welcome you back soon.

Lockers:

The 5th-8th graders will use lockers. We will have to set up a rotation system for the students to go to their lockers to make sure to follow the 6 ft social distancing. We are clearing all classrooms of extra desks, tables, and bookshelves in order to provide more space for social distancing. Students having all their books, backpacks, and lunches with them kind of defeats the purpose clearing out the extra furniture. This will be easier for the 5th graders since Mrs. Metaxas already rotates the students when they go to their lockers.

Staff Trying On Their Face Shields

Masks and Face Shields:

Will we require masks/face shields? Yes. This is an important part of the whole plan and recommendations from the CDC, AAP, and local government. I think it is very important for our students to be able to see our teachers, their facial expressions, their mouths when forming words, and be able to hear their voices. It is hard to hear someone when they are speaking while wearing a face mask. We have purchased face shields for all teachers.  There are times our teachers will use face masks and other times the face shield. It depends on the situation, teachers' comfort level, and proximity to students. The band members will use face shields when in band class.

***Suggestion from one of our parents: spend this week having your child(ren) get used to wearing the face mask for more than 10-15 minutes at a time building up the time they keep the face mask on to where they can keep it on for 30-50 minutes at a time. Keeping the face mask on for long periods of time is not easy, but it is a small sacrifice to make for everyone's well-being.

Covid-19 Room:

We are converting part of the faculty workroom to a Covid-19 room. The faculty workroom is next to the school office and has access to a bathroom. We will separate that area with curtains and place beds in that area of the room. We don't want to put the students with Covid-19 symptoms in the school clinic. And, we are going to move the bed out of the clinic and move it to the Covid-19 room. If a student feels bad enough to need a bed, they probably need to be in the Covid-19 room.

Hope some of this information helps. If you have questions, please ask. Everything we are doing is a work in progress.

God bless you,

Didier Aur, Principal

St. Ann Catholic School