March 20, 2020
Dear WES Families,
Even though these are extraordinary times, we hope this message finds you well and enjoying time with family. We certainly miss the energy, curiosity, and joy that our Dragons share with us every day.
The well-being of our community is at the forefront of our mind. Our faculty have been and will continue to reach out to families to check-in and make connections.
The WES Community has never been a building - it has always been the people.
And whether we are gathered under one roof or we are distant, please know that
the WES Community is strong, and we will continue to uphold one another.
I am pleased to share with you the
WES Distance Learning Plan
, which was developed to continue the learning and personal growth of all of our Dragons, to maintain teacher to student/family connections, and to ensure a continued strong sense of community.
We have done a great deal of research over the last week in determining how to go about this task. We realize that remote learning creates a dramatic change for students and their families, and that these changes can produce extra stress for both children and parents. We know that this is going to work differently for different families, and that is to be expected. While of course our academic structures are important in this time, we also know that your role is to be a parent, not a teacher, and we want you to embrace the flexibility that remote learning allows.
Some days this is going to work seamlessly and other days it will be a struggle, and that is okay. This plan is certainly thorough, but it is not rigid. We are all doing this for the first time together. We are going to learn together, and we are going to support each other through this new opportunity.
I am incredibly proud of our faculty and staff who have worked tirelessly over the last week to not only explore ways to engage students through a remote learning format, but they also, like you, have been managing their own worries and responsibilities as family members.
I would like to finish by sharing a prayer from today’s chapel on Facebook Live:
Dear God, even though it seems like we are far away from each other, we know that you hold us close, and that our love binds us together. Help us to feel your love with us, and help us to love one another well.
Thank you for your support, patience, and generosity of spirit as we all adjust to this new way to be a school community.
Sincerely,
