Dear SCA Family,
Currently, we continue to operate school at
Level 2. I have a daily briefing with my leadership team to stay on top of any further developments locally as well as our efforts to keep everything moving smoothly internally for the staff and students.
Beginning today per the email from Chad Evans, we have cancelled all athletic events, academic, and fine arts competitions, including field trips through
March 27. At that time, we will re-evaluate their status.
Behind the scenes, we have been working on our distance learning system as a necessary step if school should be closed for an extended period of time (Level 3). SCA is dedicated to being a world-class, Christian K-12 school, and we will move online in the same manner.
I have instructed our leadership team including Instructional Technology Director, Vicki Davis, to work with teachers to provide the support needed for them to move classes to a distance format on short notice. This includes the training of our students and faculty, and taking our students into Google Classroom, our primary method for distance education.
By noon today, all students in grades 3-12 will have logged into Google Classroom and been trained on using the distance learning system. We've asked our teachers to provide basic online assignments as a means to verify that students and teachers are connecting in the online platform. We will address any issues today while we are together.
We have instructed our 3-12th graders to connect to the online classroom this weekend to ensure engagement from home. They were given this assignment from their teachers at school this morning (free jeans pass if they complete it this weekend as an incentive). Upper elementary students are bringing home today a hard copy of their login information to connect at home. Secondary students have this login information in their planners or their inboxes of their SCA email accounts.
Our staff is preparing for online, face-to-face, instruction using
Zoom (zoom.us). We believe it will be important for our students to see and hear from their teachers during distance learning. This tool works on both computers and smart phones and is a suitable, online classroom for our students. Teachers will post information about Zoom in the online Google Classroom.
While no decision has been made at this point to move to Level 3, I advise all parents and students to prepare for the possibility that instruction could move to distance learning.
We are instructing students to take home all books and supplies today just in case we shut down next week.
Please continue to pray, take good care of yourselves and those around you, and adhere to our child wellness policy if we continue to be in session. We will communicate any new changes as soon as we have them.
Dr. Brian Dougherty
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