April 30, 2020
Dear Fontbonne Community,
I hope everyone is healthy and staying safe during this time. We are now nearly through with Week 7 of Distance Learning. I wanted to share with you some decisions the Administration has made regarding grading for the remainder of this academic year.
After receiving feedback from our parent survey, working with our professional partnerships at AISNE and NEASC schools and discussions with department chairpersons at Fontbonne, we have updated our grading policies for Distance Learning. We believe these updates support our goal of living our mission of educating the whole student. In this letter, I will summarize the main grading updates to give you a clearer understanding of our processes moving forward. Please refer to the
Best Practices and Policies
document
for details concerning how to be successful in your virtual classes.
We will not be holding traditional final exams. Any long-term projects and summative assessments will be counted as part of the Semester 2 grade. Therefore, our final day of classes for seniors will be
May 8, 2020
and the final day of classes for students in Grades 9-11 will be
June 4, 2020
.
The vast majority of Fontbonne students are working very hard and are performing at their usual high level of achievement. We are very proud of their hard work. We also understand that the current learning environment presents unique challenges for students. We want our students to continue their learning during this challenging time. Therefore, teachers, counselors, and administrators will continue to work with students who are struggling academically to help them to pass their classes.
Fontbonne is committed to the success of every student and we are here to support all of our students. We encourage any student struggling with Distance Learning due to an extended absence or conditions in their present learning environment to please communicate with us.
Given the latest announcement by Governor Baker of delaying the opening of businesses, we have decided to cancel our
Senior/Junior Prom
. This was a difficult decision as we really wanted the seniors to have this time together. However, with school closures until July, a June prom is not feasible. We will be reimbursing prom fees for seniors. Junior prom payments will be held for next year. If we are able to be on campus in large groups in July or August, we may be able to plan an alternative night for our seniors to wear their prom dresses and have a dance on campus, but this unfortunately cannot be promised.
Our Student Life Task Force met earlier this week and we will be reaching out to our seniors and their parents for some feedback on plans we are making to celebrate our seniors.
We know that this end of the school year is not ideal. We also know that the decisions we are making are to ensure the safety and well being of everyone. We know this experience is teaching us lessons of resilience and courage. We continue to hold the Fontbonne community in our prayers.
