Greetings Las Colinas Families,

My name is Darcia Bridges and I am your student’s 2^nd quarter Art Exploratory Elective and/ or English Language Arts teacher.  In addition to the information that has already been shared with you, I have included what instruction will look like in both the elective and ELA classes, as we move to the Modified Traditional Plan Schedule. Currently, I plan to host live Zoom meetings while simultaneously teaching the in-person cohort. It will be required that remote instruction cohorts attend these live Zoom meetings daily in order to receive instruction for the day, and to be counted as present for attendance.

Whether attending in-person or digitally, daily attendance is required.  For each learning situation, students will be using their chrome books, and to minimize the spread of this virus, work will be turned in as it has been this year, through Google classroom, for all classes.  If the work is completed in class, it will still be a requirement to submit it, by taking a photo of it, or completing the work assigned in Google classroom.  Therefore, when attending school in person, a charged chrome book is a requirement, as there are not enough electrical outlets for students to have the ability to charge chrome books in class, in person, and there will be very limited movement possible, while practicing six foot distancing in a classroom.  It will be a requirement that each student brings a reading book to all classes, in addition to their Language Arts textbooks while in Language Arts, on a daily basis.  Please help your student to prepare for in-person instruction by bringing the notebooks that students were given at the beginning of the year, so they are prepared to take notes, as has been required during digital learning, for all classes.

This in person schedule may not be ideal, as it eliminates some of the assumed freedoms of a remote instruction day. However, hosting live Zoom meetings while simultaneously teaching the in-person cohort, is one of the only options that will allow the possibility to provide new instruction to all students on a daily basis.  With the move to a Modified Traditional Plan schedule, class instruction time will be reduced from 95 minute class periods to 80 minute class periods.

Additionally, cohorts participating in in-person instruction will be required to complete an important series of health and safety protocols at the start of each class period.  In the last several weeks, teachers were informed that they will be acting as health diagnosticians, requiring each student to remove their mask temporarily, for a visual assessment of their physical health, upon entering the classroom of their first class. Each student will then be required to sanitize their hands, and then given an alcohol wipe to clean chairs and desks from the prior class’ use. After this procedure, the students will again sanitize their hands after disposing of used alcohol wipe, etc. These necessary protocols will need to take place at the beginning of each period, which will result in less overall class-time dedicated to academics. 

Please note that the directive teachers have received is that Zoom class meetings streamed during live in-person instruction will no longer be bi-directional exchanges. Essentially, the expectation is that students will attend and view the lesson only; they will not necessarily interact with the teacher or their peers as is the norm in our current Zoom class meetings. Therefore, in order for teachers to follow the direction given, to focus on the in-class students, Zoom students will remain muted and expected not to interrupt the in-person class. Despite this new expectation, I will do my best to continue to address remote participants’ questions and allow students to share and collaborate with the whole group while also teaching the in-person cohort to the best of my ability.

Thank you in advance for all you do to support this new educational experience.  I have enjoyed working with you and your student while in Zoom class meetings, and thank you for your patience and understanding as we learn to navigate yet another change to how students will access academic content and how teachers are expected to deliver instruction.

Respectfully,

Darcia Bridges

Las Colinas Middle School

Please feel free to contact our principal, Kelly Hatton, with any scheduling or programmatic questions at khatton@pleasantvalleysd.org.

Please email me if there are any questions at dbridges@pleasantvalleysd.org