Dear Lycée Families,
Thank you for the tremendous amount of feedback you provided us with on the survey sent over Spring Break. It was helpful as we continue to amend and adapt our online academic resources during this time apart. We are thrilled that 81% of respondents reported feeling satisfied or very satisfied with the LFNO academics and support. Most of the remaining respondents reported neutral feelings. While we recognize there is great variation in family dynamics and student needs, we will continue to do all we can to offer an excellent education to ALL of our students during this time of learning from home. As announced in our last communication, we are launching the new phase of our academic plan and in this message you will find many new or amended structures for our educational program with specific details coming directly from your child(ren)’s teacher(s).
New Instructional Material
For the first phase of learning from home, we focused on getting everyone outfitted and comfortable with the shifts and teachers only reviewed academic content that was previously taught. Monday of this week, April 20th, teachers started introducing new material in a gradual and thoughtful manner. New topics and skills are presented in the following subjects:
- Patton, early childhood (preK-2nd grades): French, Math, & ELA
- Johnson, Upper Elementary (3rd-5th grades): French & Math
- Johnson, Middle/High School (6th-9th grades): French, Math, Spanish, Science, & Histoire-géographie
For other subject areas, including Johnson ELA and middle school Social Studies, classes will continue to build on existing skills and access high quality literature and writing opportunities.
Live Learning Sessions
We are excited to announce that we are introducing weekly live sessions starting next Monday, April 27th. This will be a great way for students to engage with their teachers and classmates. For security and simplicity reasons, our team will use Google Meet to host these sessions. Students must use their LNFO accounts to join these virtual meetings. If you have issues logging-in, please contact
support@lfno.org
. These sessions are organized according to the following schedule:
- Lower and upper elementary French teachers will host two live sessions per week
- ELA and Middle/High school teachers will host will host one live session per class per week
We created a school-wide schedule with minimal overlap so that families with multiple LNFO students who share computers can all access their live sessions. Please, refer to this
linked
schedule for information about specific grade levels and subjects. A follow up message will follow this for Middle/High School students regarding which groups they are in for each virtual session. Teachers will share log-in information (i.e. specific link to their Google Meet) for their live sessions. If a student is unable to attend at the scheduled time, live sessions will be recorded and made available for students to watch when they are able.
On the instructional days when not hosting live classes, teachers will continue posting recorded videos and assignments for the day. Lower and upper elementary French teachers will not post any work on Wednesdays to give students more opportunities to catch up and complete all assignments on a weekly basis, and to allow for teachers to use planning time to develop both videos and live sessions. Please refer to the schedule that will be sent by your teacher for details on weekly expectations and schedule.
Expectations for Live Learning Sessions
While we are looking forward to enabling our students to spend more interactive time with their teachers and classmates, we want to emphasize a few basic rules that will facilitate a favorable learning environment for everyone:
- All students (or parents for younger students) should sign the Student online class user agreement that will be shared by individual teachers.
- All students should be on time for the live session (i.e. log-in several minutes early to resolve any technical difficulties) to maximize the time available and minimize disruptions.
- Students should be in the most quiet space possible where they can sit down, focus on the shared content, and contribute to the class.
- Students should come to the online class fully prepared. Please follow the teachers’ recommendations: younger students might need a pencil and a piece of paper or a small whiteboard, while older students will most likely be assigned lessons or exercises to be completed ahead of time.
- All students should be ready to participate and learn and thus they should:
- be dressed appropriately (i.e. be fully dressed and not wear costumes or pajamas)
- be fully awake
- refrain from eating during the session
- not play with toys, electronic devices, siblings, nor pets
- All students should interact in a positive and respectful manner with their teacher and classmates, both directly and in the chat box as directed by the teacher.
- All students should mute their microphone unless otherwise requested by the teacher.
- Parents should not participate in the online session, with the exception of providing technical assistance (especially for younger students). Please refrain from interrupting the teacher or answering the questions that are asked to students. These sessions are meant to facilitate teacher-to-student, student-to-teacher, and student-to-student interactions. You may email the teacher questions about an assignment or a lesson.
- Disrespectful interactions or not complying with these rules might result in a student’s removal from the live class, or other consequences, as determined by an administrator.
Student Acceptable Use Policy
As a part of the annual school registration process, families signed the Student Acceptable Use Policy as related to school technology and internet expectations. Given that our tools and mode of instruction have changed, we have added an
Online Live Learning Addendum
(highlighted) to this policy. If you do not agree to this addendum, you have the right to opt your student out of the live learning opportunities. You would opt out by simply not having your child join a live class and instead accessing any recordings on the teacher’s Google Classroom at a later time.
There will be more messaging soon regarding grading and retention, seeing that this is quite a bit of information already. For the time being we leave you with the excitement we all feel for starting the next phase of learning with live interactions.
We look forward to “seeing” you all soon, dear Lycée Family!
LFNO Academic Leadership Team
