Dear AUHSD Parents and Students,

 

As announced last week, the AUHSD Governing Board held a special meeting last night to discuss the models for the start of the school year on August 11. The Board did approve three models and associated schedules: blended learning, distance learning and an alternative online option. Unfortunately, due to the surge in local COVID19 incidence, recent County and State orders, and inadequate capacity for testing and contact tracing, the Governing Board decided unanimously to start the school year in a distance learning format. I recognize this is devastating news for so many of our students.

 

We ALL want our students back in school as soon as possible, and we have been working through the summer to acquire the equipment and supplies, modify facilities, develop program and protocol so that we can do so safely. The public health conditions at this point are the barrier to in-person learning. We will continue to monitor the conditions, and the Governing Board will revisit the status of distance learning no later than September 2. We are also beginning to explore alternatives to available testing and contact tracing, as the standard must improve from that currently available to our schools.

 

Distance learning will be implemented very differently from the program experienced from March 16 through the end of May. There will be a clear schedule, required engagement and assignments, attendance taken, letter grades issued, teacher contact every day, synchronous learning each day, independent and group learning activity, and all learning will be anchored in our new learning management system, Canvas, which is the platform utilized by many universities. We have challenges ahead, but have confidence the student experience will be stimulating and rigorous and advance our students toward their goals. To provide additional academic and social-emotional support, we will phase-in targeted programs offering on campus and in-person student support and extra-curricular engagement (if county public health orders allow small groups on campus).

Here is the approved Distance Learning schedule:

 

We will be providing much more communication in the coming weeks. You will also receive information specific to programs in which your student participates (i.e., special education, athletics, cocurricular, Section 504, ELD, 9 ^th grade orientation).

 

To help answer the many questions you might have, we encourage you to submit questions via this form. We will examine the questions and generate a FAQ document for posting next week. For consideration for the first draft of the FAQs document, please submit your questions by Sunday, July 19. We will update the FAQ periodically with additional questions and answers. Note: We have received many inquiries in the last 24 hours regarding fall sports - we will not be making additional announcements regarding sports until after the 9am, July 20, CIF announcement and subsequent (later in the day) NCS announcements.  (While we will attempt to respond to all emails sent, the volume has been particularly challenging and hope the FAQ format will meet interests.)

 

The presentation for last night's Governing Board meeting can be found here. Updates regarding our reopening can always be found on this website, and the video from the Board meeting should be posted by the end of the week.

 

Sincerely,

 

John Nickerson

Superintendent