Dear St. John’s Parish Day School Families,
Thank you for a successful start to our new Distance Learning program. We appreciate your commitment to this new process as well as your flexibility to navigate this unchartered format for continued learning. It is wonderful to have everyone working as a team to ensure our students' continued academic success.
Please know that your health and safety are always our primary concern.
Unfortunately, in light of the current pandemic circumstances as well as state and local mandates, we will be extending our campus closure through April 24th. We will continue our Distance Learning platform and anxiously plan for our all school return on Monday, April 27th.
Our main priorities during this closure will be providing continued curricular content and maintaining a sense of community. We are committed to moving our curriculum forward and making sure our students are progressing. Our faculty continues to work diligently to offer age appropriate learning with lessons, craft ideas, special area enrichment, video recordings, virtual meetings, etc. We meet virtually where possible and are actively exploring and improving upon our new learning platforms. This past Sunday, Lower School (LS) teachers launched their online platforms for continued distance learning. Each LS teacher has a Google Classroom G-Suite for their particular grade level. The site includes a "Specials" tab for students to access Science, Music, Violin, P.E., Art, Spanish & Technology lessons (watch for our SJPDS playlist to come out next week). Early Childhood teachers will continue to send emails at least twice weekly with lessons and activities as a continuation of what would typically be happening at school.
We greatly appreciate the positive feedback from families regarding the effectiveness of our teacher-led ‘Zoom’ meetings to keep students engaged in their learning and connected to their peers. Our faculty will continue to maintain regular communication and are available via email Monday-Friday to answer your questions.
We recognize that this time can be stressful for families and we also want to be mindful of how our students are feeling. Our Chaplain, Joanne Tetrault, will continue to be a resource for families during the Distance Learning period. Please email her at
jtetrault@stjohnsec.org
if you would like words of encouragement, counseling and/or prayers. As you navigate Distance Learning ideas and conversations with your children on this topic, we have included several resources for families on our
COVID-19 page
. Please feel free to share our collected resources with your family, friends, and neighbors.
Thank you, parents, faculty, and staff for being such amazing partners through this difficult time. I am reminded of a powerful anonymous quote, which states: "After all of this is over, all that will have really mattered is how we treated each other." I am very proud to say that our community has treated each other with so much support, kindness, grace and respect, and I am honored to be a part of this wonderful school.
We miss you all dearly and look forward to reuniting when it is safe to do so. Take care of yourselves and your families and stay safe and healthy!
Warmly,
Lori Dembo
Head of School
