Good afternoon Parkview Families,
I hope everyone had a great week and is looking forward to a restful weekend!
There are several important topics I wanted to share with everyone so please take note of the information below as well as the attachments included to this post.
Beginning Monday, September 21, grades 1-2-3 will have some adjustments to their schedules. After successfully working through the past three weeks with our students and teachers, we wanted to make some tweaks to improve the overall experience of virtual learning. In a nutshell, grades 1-2-3 will have approximately 35 minutes less screen time per day. On some days, depending on their specific schedule, there will be about an hour less screen time. With that being said, Language Arts and Math whole-class times have been restructured, allowing for teachers to schedule 1:1 time with students every week as well as small group instruction. Physical Education classes will still be twice per week, however, one will remain 'live' with Mrs. Giglio and the other class will be posted assignments on her Classroom page. With these small adjustments, we feel the overall learning experience will be more impactful and allow for less student fatigue during the day.
Next, in the same vein as I just outlined, beginning Wednesday, September 23, while we are still in the fully virtual model, every Wednesday, students will have an early dismissal day. This, too, coupled with the attached schedules below, we hope to decrease student screen time and fatigue, and also allow our teachers to fully plan for their new outlined scheduled day.
Toward the end of summer, as mentioned during our parent forums on our school reopening plan, our Google Meets lessons are recorded and available upon request due to absences, technical issues, or for additional parent reteaching. The recorded portions of the lessons will include the introductory part of the lesson as well as the direct instruction. The conversational interactions will not be included in the recording. Please contact your child's teacher or myself for a simulcast session request form if required.
Back to School Night is upon us! This upcoming Wednesday, September 23 is Parkview's virtual Back to School Night. The evening will begin at 6:00pm with 'live' introductory remarks from myself, District Assistant Principal - Mrs. Citro, Supervisor of Special Education - Mrs. McGowan, Parkview's Nurs - Mrs. Mormando, as well as Mr. Schneider, our Board of Education President. The 'live' session will be held via Zoom and that link I will send out early next week.
The next part of the evening, between 6:30pm - 7:00pm, will include time to watch your child's homeroom teacher(s), interventionists, or special area teachers pre-recorded videos about their specific class, grade level and/or department. Feel free to watch several of them!
Back to School Night's third, and concluding session will be from 7:00pm - 7:40pm. During this time, all teachers and interventionists will host a 'live' Q&A session. It will be a great opportunity to ask them questions after just watching their pre-recorded presentations or just basic school related items from the last few weeks. Teachers will not have an opportunity in this time to conference about your children specifically - that will take place in November or by scheduled appointment if necessary.
Lastly, I've said it before and want to continue to make sure that my point gets across - thank you so much to the parents and teachers that have collectively made this learning experience worthwhile and purposeful for our kids. The efforts by all do not go unnoticed by myself, the teachers, staff, and administration.
I apologize for the long winded end of the week message, but there was a lot of important information to convey.
Enjoy your weekend!
Mr. Siegel