Enter to Learn. Go Forth to Serve.
Saturday, March 28, 2020
Hello O’Hara families, 

We hope that you have had a healthy & peaceful Spring Break with your family. We recognize that these are completely different circumstances than normal....but we hope you have been able to enjoy the break and carve out some time for family fun.

As a staff, we worked over the break to map out O’Hara’s digital learning plan for April. Please read below for updates and adjustments that we will implement going forward.

SURVEY & FEEDBACK

Thank you for helping us by participating in our survey. We are grateful for the large volume of high-quality feedback that we received. Our staff spent considerable time over Spring Break working to read each response and make adjustments and refinements based on your input. To read more about specific changes made in response to the survey, please click here .

We recognize that this new digital learning platform has increased the amount of screen time for many of our students. We know that many families have screen time limits in a normal setting, however, screen time is unavoidable in our current situation. We are hopeful that some of our changes will help give flexibility to individual families in regards to screen time. 

NEW SCHEDULE

We have worked to create a schedule that we believe will enhance our new digital learning platform and will benefit both students and teachers. Please be sure that you refer to your child’s homeroom teacher’s DLD page daily as this is where you will always find the most current information. 

New content in core classes will be delivered and posted Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. Wednesdays will be days for students to engage in optional Zoom meetings (digital face to face) with their teachers, complete and get caught up on work, work on specialist class activities and other optional activities. Please note, attendance must still be submitted on Wednesdays.

Additional changes to schedules and class formats, along with any updates to class expectations that are happening at specific grade levels will be communicated to families as it pertains to their student by individual teachers.

COMMUNICATION, DLD STRUCTURE, ATTENDANCE

Here are some reminders about how Digital Learning Days work: 
To organize and communicate student assignments, we use one main document that acts as a table of contents - please bookmark this page: Digital Learning Day Directory . This document contains links to each grade and specialist that your child may receive homework from on digital learning days. 
 
Teachers will update the assignments on their DLD page by 9am on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday & Friday. Depending on the grade of your student, there will be different requirements and expectations, please be sure to read through those daily. Please be sure to read through each day’s guidelines carefully for due dates. 

Please note: classwork will not be sent via email. Please use the Digital Learning Directory as your source of information for digital learning for your student.


Attendance
Parents must click the attendance link at the top of the homeroom teacher’s Digital Learning Day Directory page by 11:30am. Please note: attendance for each student must be submitted each day.
 
There are 3 attendance options:
PRESENT: My child is participating in the digital learning day today.
SICK: My child is sick and/or unable to participate in the digital learning day today.
VACATION: My child is not sick, but will not be participating in the digital learning day today.   
NOTE: if you do not check in by 11:30am, your child will be marked absent for the day.
 
If your child ends up getting sick mid-day, simply email the teacher and Mrs. Whitford to clarify.


Teacher Office/Email Hours
Our teachers will continue to maintain email office hours of 9:00-10:30am and 1:30- 3:00pm each school day, except Wednesdays. These scheduled hours are set with the intention that families can anticipate when they can more easily access a teacher. These hours are, in no way, meant to restrict access to our staff. Please feel free to email at any time with the understanding that individual circumstances will determine the speed at which a response is received.


School-wide emails
Mrs. Conway will send one email each school-day morning. This email will include any updates to share, a morning prayer, and will also include a standard set of links for ease of accessing our Digital Learning Directory. 

We are revamping our Weekly Bulletin with the goal of sending school-wide emails out each Saturday evening. The goal of the adjusted date is to give families more time to prepare for the week ahead. 

COMMUNITY, CALENDAR & RESOURCES

We are working to create as many community-building opportunities for our students and families as possible. Please follow our Instagram and Facebook page for prayers, live feeds, and activities your students can participate in! We want our students to remember they are an important part of our O’Hara community and we want to see their pictures! We encourage you to tag us in your posts, or send us pictures via email: pictures@oharaschool.org . 


Weekly calendar
We have developed a school-wide weekly calendar to share with families each week. The link to this calendar is at the top of the Digital Learning Directory. These are optional activities intended to be community-building opportunities and are not required. 

Below are the activities for this week:

Sunday, 11am: Mass from the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception - streamed live on the archdiocesan Facebook page .

Trivia Tuesday: Watch our social media feeds for a new O’Hara Staff Trivia game!

Tuesday, 5:30pm: Facebook Live Praise and Worship with Mrs. Jones

Thank You Thursday: write a thank you note to first responders/medical workers and email a picture of it to pictures@oharaschool.org . We will make a slideshow to share out to the community.  

Thursday, 1pm: YouTube Live Praise and Worship with Mrs. Jones

Friday: Gospel T-Shirt Day! Send a picture of your student in their Gospel T to pictures@oharaschool.org and we’ll share out the pictures on social media.

Friday, 6pm: Evening prayer from Archbishop Sample's home chapel streamed live on Archbishop Sample's Facebook page . 


Resources & links
We’ve added a resource page at the top of the Digital Learning Directory that includes links for families. We recognize that the sheer number of emails sent and links being posted can be overwhelming, so this document is just meant to capture and catalog these as we share them out on social media or via email. This document is just for reference and no action is required on your part.

SURVEY RESPONSES: Thank you for your support

We are humbled by the positive and supportive feedback we received from our survey. As a staff, we want our families to know that this support is truly what makes O’Hara the community one we all know and love. The buy-in, flexibility and patience of our families is what allows us to move forward, together, in these uncharted waters. Each day, our students, staff and families make me proud to be your principal. Please click here to read some of the comments from our survey.
SCHOOL CALENDAR SURROUNDING EASTER

Good Friday - Friday, April 10:
No academic work will be assigned or due. We are working on plans for Good Friday that will include optional religious activities for our community.

Easter Monday - Monday, April 13:
O’Hara will take this day off as originally planned in our school calendar. There will be no academic work assigned or due. 
UPDATES FROM THE ARCHDIOCESE & FR. RON NELSON

We are grateful for our partnership with the Archdiocese Department of Catholic Schools. Please read through this letter from our Superintendent, Mrs. Jeannie Ray-Timoney. 

During this time of so much uncertainty, we are so grateful to our school pastor, Fr. Ron Nelson, as he continues to stay involved with our school. Please enjoy this message and prayer from Fr. Ron. 

Many blessings to each and every member of our community. 

Sincerely, 

Tammy Conway
Principal
"As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord."

- Joshua 24:15
O'Hara Catholic School
715 West 18th Avenue
Eugene, Oregon 97402
541.485.5291