March 24th, 2020 - Day One, In the Books

March 24, 2020

Whew.

Yesterday was a tough day. Out of District emails got bounced back. The phone rang off the hook. Food ran out way too early (This will be fixed for Thursday). Between these tasks, I jumped in and out of Skype, Zoom, and Hangouts before heading to home to help my sons with their online modules at about 6:00 PM. We are very fortunate to both be working right now, but juggling being a teacher, employee, and parent at the same time will take some getting used to. I'm sure your day was just as challenging, if not harder. Thank you for persevering.

Seeing our staff come together and the agency of students were the highlights of the day. Continue to visit WWHS COVID-19 Response Virtual Classroom Reference Sheet (Community-Facing) for Google Classroom and Remind codes. Students came steadily for Chromebooks and emailed for support. If students still need a computer, please bring them to the horseshoe Thursday between 10 and 1 PM. If you need tech support, please call 972.925.5630 for assistance. This department told me last night that they will be more prepared tomorrow to handle the volume of support necessary.

Seniors!

Ms. Baz shared some good news as well.

If you hadn't heard already, 90.93% of seniors have completed either FAFSA or TASFA (which is such an accomplishment now that we're having to work with students remotely). We're at $7.1 million in scholarships and counting. Though it might feel as if life is temporarily on pause, students are still getting accepted to universities, including Pomona, USC, UVA, and more in the last week alone.

Students and parents can schedule one-on-one meetings with me via Calendly: https://calendly.com/LBaz. Please feel free to share this link in any way you can. To gauge where students are in this significant transition period, I also will be sending them a needs assessment form. With their responses, I hope to have a better sense of what/how to prioritize and plan when it comes to college, based on what they feel they need right now.

Questions and Concerns:

I know there are a number of other issues we are still working on and we will keep you posted here.

By the end of the day Tuesday we should be able to explain how attendance will be taken.
While grades may show in Google Classroom, teachers will continue to enter official grades in PowerSchool based on district weighting and percentages.
We do not have official word on senior events or Individual Graduation Committees (IGC) required for those with outstanding STAAR tests.
There are still details we need to work out to support for AP and IB measures. We are anticipating more information on Friday.
ARD and 504 meetings will continue through virtual meeting platforms.

We will get better each day, and this will get easier. We've overcome hard things before, and this will prepare us for the next obstacles. I have a tremendous amount of faith in you and our staff.