March 26, 2020
Your Daily ISD News & Updates
Welcome to the MAISA Daily InSiDe Update.
MAISA will be providing this resource of critical topics each day.
Please reach out to sfranck@gomaisa.org if you have items to add.
MAISA/MASA/MASB Statement Regarding COVID-19 School Closures and Certainty for Educators, Students and Families
Yesterday afternoon, MAISA, MASA and MASB released a statement for the Governor's consideration regarding COVID-19 School Closures and Certainty for Educators, Students and Families. The statement is reprinted in its entirety below:

Lansing, MI, March 26, 2020 —The executive directors of the Michigan Association of Superintendents & Administrators, the Michigan Association of Intermediate School Administrators, and the Michigan Association of School Boards, today released the following statement regarding COVID-19 School Closures and Certainty for Educators, Students, and Families:

“Today we call on state officials including Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, State Superintendent Dr. Michael Rice, the Legislative Quadrant, and state lawmakers to immediately provide clarity to Michiganders on what’s next for our children. Further delay creates uncertainty for countless communities across our state.

We urge the state to immediately move to waive days of instruction that fell during the mandated period of closure from March 16 through April 13, 2020, and develop a clear framework and plan to guide districts in educating children through a statewide seat-time waiver going forward. This framework must acknowledge the incredible disparities that exist between communities related to technology, access to broadband, and other resources while clearly identifying methods in which districts will be able to provide quality instruction in a variety of ways, rather than a one-size-fits-all approach.

We recognize that there are legitimate health and safety reasons why the Legislature is unable to meet, and to that end, encourage the Quadrant to work closely with the Executive Branch to address these concerns.

We further urge Gov. Whitmer to, within the next week, determine whether a longer-term closure will be necessary so that district leaders and families may begin to prepare to implement plans for the long-term education of children away from the classroom.

We stand ready to support our state leaders in any way possible to ensure every child continues to learn while our state faces this unprecedented challenge.”
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MAISA Connectivity Estimate Survey
Through the MAISA METL Group, and in partnership with MDE, ISDs will be asked to help promote/coordinate a survey of ISDs and local school districts to discover the level of student and teacher internet connectivity and device access in homes across the state (e.g. Do you have connectivity? Do you have a device?). 

The survey is planned to be sent out tomorrow, March 27, with the goal of having responses within a week from its issuance, so that results can be reviewed, compiled and shared within a week after that (or about two weeks after its issuance). The data will be shared with MAISA, MASA, MDE and the Governor's office, among others. It may be the only data of its kind that is currently available in the state.  
 
ISDs will be encouraged to leverage their relationships with their local school districts to boost response rates and to review the responses from their ISD and constituent districts for unique or unusual information that can be flagged for follow up or highlighted in the results.  

Thank you METL for your leadership and efforts in this space.
Merit to Hold Webinar
to Keep Security Efforts Going
Merit will be launching a new series based around K12 Cybersecurity mini-webinars, each focused on a particular practical topic you can use. Please find details on the first mini-webinar below:

When:
Friday, April 3 at 10:30am

Topic:
This session will be "Working and Learning at Home Securely", and will be focused on the practical things we can teach our staff on how they can keep themselves and their data safe while at home during the COVID-19 situation. 

Meeting information:
Phone Connection: (346)248-7799
Meeting ID: 761 910 549
State Education Network Update
With the current state of COVID-19 and its potential spread, communities across the US may become more dependent upon technology to assist and address access for healthcare, work and schools.
Here at MISEN, we want to reassure you that the State Education Network, in partnership with Michigan ISD’s, will continue operations 24x7 to include monitoring, maintenance and ongoing engagement with vendors to ensure high availability for all of our K-12 partners across the state of Michigan.

The SEN will maintain support for Telecommuting/Remote Access, Distance Learning, Shared Services, Video Conferencing, Virtual Reality, Internet Access and Data-Hub connectivity in order to provide continuous educational services at whatever level and duration may be needed.

Any SEN issues should follow the standard communication process in reporting via your regional ISD, Merit Helpdesk and SEN operations team as outlined below:

  • Regional ISD technical support contact (first)
  • Merit Helpdesk – msc@merit.edu
  • Kurt Torok – (269) 207-6321
  • Matt Stark – (810) 577-9622
  • MISEN Operations – misen-ops@merit.edu