March 11, 2020 Dear Sandy Spring Friends School Community, Over the past few days, we have been in almost daily touch regarding the coronavirus and the steps we are taking as a school to keep our community healthy while continuing our teaching and learning and our other distinctive activities. Today, we determined that it is in the best interest of Sandy Spring Friends School, our students, their families, our faculty, staff, and all who are a part of our community to quickly transition from our prevailing model of delivering our curriculum at school, on campus, to a virtual classroom model conforming to the best advice from public health officials and reflecting best practices among educational institutions. I want to assure everyone that we are taking these steps as a pre-emptive measure and not in response to an immediate health-related development affecting Sandy Spring Friends School. Quakers conduct Meeting for Worship in Meeting Houses. We understand that the Church is not a building, rather, it is all of us who support one another, teach one another, learn from one another, respect one another, and strive to see the Light in one another. While moving to a virtual classroom experience for a period of time, until it is deemed safe to return and we can once again all be in close proximity, temporarily deprives us of the Meeting House, the Sandy Spring Friends School community spirit remains strong, active, engaged, and fully intact. The disruption caused by the coronavirus does not and will not alter our commitment to provide to all of our students an educational experience based on a spirit of inquiry, incorporating experiential learning, retaining caring teachers as mentors and building community. Now for the details. Here is how our transition to virtual school will work:
- Thursday: Tomorrow, Thursday, March 12th will be our last day for classes on campus until further notice. Dorm students will transition out of the dorm to home or homestay arrangements starting after school on Thursday (additional details for boarders and families below). After Thursday, there will be no athletic practices or competitions, evening events/gatherings, facilities rentals, or other gatherings of groups on campus during this time.
- Friday: As previously announced, Friday, March 13th will be a professional development day for teachers to hone the tools and skills to start delivering our educational program via virtual learning methods.
- Monday: Monday, March 16th will be an additional professional day for teachers to develop lesson plans, collaborate with grade level teams or departments and get ready for our first day of virtual learning. Both Friday and Monday will be considered like snow days and do not need to be made up in our calendar.
- The Academic Schedule: Tuesday, March 17th will be our first day of virtual learning. Students are expected to "attend" school during the regular school day according to our current schedule, online from home. School is in session, and daily student "attendance" is required, via virtual means.
- In the Lower School, we will maintain the Green Week/Gold week structure, though there will be some modifications to when instruction and school work will be assigned, etc. The plan is to continue the developmental, play-based, and academic aspects of our program at each grade level, with an eye towards making sure students continue the academic content they would otherwise be receiving to move on to the next grade level in school. Seesaw will be a core tool for teachers, students, and parents/guardians, and some additional online tools will be utilized. Joel Gunzburg will be meeting with each Lower School class on Thursday to have conversations about the change and student reactions to it. Students and families will be provided more information over the coming days.
- For the Middle and Upper Schools, the school day will be built around our existing seven-day cycle of Day 1 through Day 7, and the scheduled A Block through G Block. In other words, if on a given Thursday, scheduled to be a Day 2, a student's English class is normally scheduled to meet during B Block, that is when the English teacher will be available to meet (email, videoconference, teleconference, etc.) to answer student questions, or to conduct a required synchronous session with the entire class. Students need to be available during class periods each school day, unless otherwise directed by the teacher. Finalsite, Zoom, and Google Classroom will be core tools for Middle and Upper School learning.
- Assigning Schoolwork: Assignments and activities for the next day will be posted by 4 pm the day before, or earlier, via Seesaw or Finalsite. So, by 4 pm, students will know what is expected of them the next school day.
- Methodology: Coursework will involve a mix of asynchronous (done at at time of the student's choosing) and synchronous (scheduled for a specific class period when the student must participate) activities. Required work may be synchronous or asynchronous.
- The Next Few Weeks: Tuesday through Friday of next week will be an opportunity for us to make the shift into this virtual learning mode and work out initial kinks. We will then have our normal spring break for the week of March 23rd, and then virtual school will resume on Monday, March 30th. We are asking faculty to plan for continuing in virtual school mode for at least two weeks after spring break (weeks of March 30 and April 6). It is likely that this will be extended, based on the patterns we are seeing from other places in the world. If there is an opportunity to shorten this time, we could do that, also. We do hope to return to "normal," in-person learning before the end of the year, but that script has yet to be written. We will do our best to keep all families informed.
- Student Support: We recognize that a burden of supervision at home will ramp up, and will fall very unevenly depending on your child's age and academic profile and needs. To the extent we are able to provide support, we will do so. Our learning specialists and counselors are fully engaged and developing ways to continue supports for students while we are in virtual learning mode.
- School is Open: We are moving to virtual learning mode in order to sever the pathways of contagion for a virus for which our understanding of the pathology is incomplete. This means halting exposure through reducing or eliminating group interactions as much as possible. However, we are not "closing school" or "closing the campus." SSFS remains open, essential functions on campus will continue, and administrative functions will continue. If you need to reach, for example, the business office, or a division office, these will be staffed and functioning. As you may guess, the email burden on school personnel has ramped up, and will ramp up more. Bear with us as we seek to be responsive, doing "triage," etc.
- What about PE, Art, etc.?: Some classes and activities do not directly translate well to a distance learning format. Teachers of these classes/subjects are revising approaches in order to provide students with developmentally appropriate experiences of value, seeking to preserve the high level goals of these experiences in another way. The approach taken will vary from subject to subject, and age group to age group.
- Implications for Boarding Students: As has been communicated previously by Jonathan Oglesbee, the Host Families will continue to host their homestay students during virtual school days. Westview and Norwood dormitories are beginning to implement the planned closure procedures, which means Dorm Staff are working with 5-Day dorm students to begin moving to their homes, and they are working to finalize and confirm housing placements for all 7-Day dorm students. Boarding and Host Family students and families, please continue to check your email for updates.
- Seniors: the Upper School is particularly sensitive to anxiety that seniors (and their families) may be feeling around their ability to finish the year and graduate. No one expected their senior year to unfold like this! The Upper School is taking steps to make sure that every senior is able to complete their graduation requirements and receive their SSFS diploma. Seniors need to simply make sure they are following through on requirements in all their classes, just like "regular" school.
Please review the email from David Hickson from Tuesday, March 10th for additional information about family travel notification, information sources, etc. We held a special all-school staff and faculty meeting this afternoon in order to convey these plans to the employee community. While there was a range of initial reactions and emotions, and lots and lots of questions, the spirit in the room was overall very positive and "we can do this." We recognize that there will be many stresses placed on teachers, staff, students, families, host family parents, guardians, etc. over the coming weeks, as the world adjusts to the realities of (what the WHO declared today) a global pandemic. With care, compassion, and a bit of patience, we can do well by our kids/students. We will be providing more information to families and students over the next several days, and we hope these will address most of the questions that are certainly forming in your mind now. If we do not address these over the next few days, please reach out to us. The best pathway will be to start with the teacher or advisor, then division administration and support personnel, then, as needed, senior administration. We will all strive to be as responsive and clear as we can be, in a situation with lots of unknowns.
In peace,
Tom Gibian David Hickson Liza Long David Blake Jonathan Oglesbee and the SSFS Faculty, Staff, and Administration |