Dear parents and guardians,
This email serves to update you on important initiatives that we are continuing to work on as the City School District of New Rochelle (CSDNR) remains closed in response to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis.
As many of you know our main focus and moral imperative is to
ensure that our students continue to be supported in two main categories their education including their social and emotional health and their access to a healthy and balanced nutrition.
The CSDNR continues to be focused on ways in which we can enrich the online learning experience. We are also beginning to look into options to continue to scaffold and support students to ensure that they are ready and at grade level for next year. This includes a deep analytic into the options that we may provide for summer school.
Many of you have questioned whether or not we will return to school April 2, 2020. Interestingly, in a surprising turn of events, the Governor overruled the Commissioners’ understanding of when schools should open. We have been notified that schools
should open on April 1, 2020
. Having said that, this is only the most recent guidance. CSNDR cannot commit to when schools will open because of the ever-evolving guidance that is being provided to school districts daily. What we can commit to is ensuring that we work closely with our teaching professionals to ensure that the online learning experience is as robust and meaningful as possible while looking into integrating additional technologies when possible.
Food distribution
will be available at the following locations:
Please remember
food being made by CSDNR is available only for those 18 years or younger
. We know and appreciate that at some of the community sites multiple concurrent efforts are being made to serve both students and the population at large. We have requested that sites serving multiple end users be done by different volunteers at each service point. Volunteers distributing food created by the CSDNR should remain in that role only.
● New Rochelle High School House IV parking lot
● 95 Lincoln Ave
.
● 345 Main St
● City Park
● Columbus Elementary School
● Trinity Elementary School
An important part of any school year is the
budget process
. At our last public meeting, Mr. Gregory Kern and I presented on the budget along with all of the new hires and purchases which are included in the preliminary superintendent’s budget. We encourage you to review the PowerPoint presentation
here
and the preliminary budget book
here
and provide any questions to
budgetquestions@nredlearn.org
.
We are happy to report that we have fully reviewed all of the questions submitted to date in our FAQ platform. Please look for an up loaded “
FAQ section
” on our districts’ page late tomorrow. To help satisfy the desire for transparency we have not “bucketed” the questions. We have responded to each individual question. As such, you may find there is some redundancy. Many in the community have asked similar questions. Once the full list of questions have been on the district page for some time we will streamline the questions and only provide those with unique answers.
In the correspondence sent out yesterday, we informed you that there would be two links to
ThoughtExchanges
that we would share with the community today. Below please find:
● We are happy to announce a
Thoughtexchange
for the community to provide feedback on the role of
Parent Coordinators
in the City School District of New Rochelle. Here you will be able to enter your thoughts and rate those of others to answer the following question, “What are the most important job functions of a Parent Coordinator in the City School District of New Rochelle?“
Here is the link to be able to participate in the survey.
● In addition, the
Thoughtexchange
to provide feedback on Phase I is still open and will remain open until April 3, 2020. Please remember to go in as often as you want to review and rate thoughts individuals have shared from the question, “Based on the Phase I reports, what are the top priorities we should consider in the City School District of New Rochelle as we plan for next year?“
Find the link here.
We hope that you will be able to inform our thinking around the important functions parent and community engagement through the lens of the end-user.
As the circumstances of the coronavirus COVID-19 issue continue to evolve, many in the community have become increasingly more concerned. As a result, many of the wonderful hard-working district employees who have been delivering
Chromebooks
have asked to stop that process. If you would like a Chromebook for your child in grades 6 – 12, you will be able to pick one up at New Rochelle High School. We will set up a Chromebook pick up which will be available for parents Monday through Wednesday. After that, we will have to consider whether or not it is viable to continue to provide Chromebooks.
We know that access to this important technology is an important part of the equity we strive to provide in CSDNR. Unfortunately, because the offering of Chromebooks has not been deemed an essential service by the State, we cannot mandate our employees to continue to provide the Chromebooks past Wednesday. We hope that we will be able to service as many students as possible in the short remaining window. We will also continue to think of creative solutions and share them as they are developed.
We will continue to update you with important information in coming days. We thank you for your continued support of the CSDNR. Although these are difficult and uncertain times, we are committed to ensuring that this worldwide health crisis does not impact our students’ learning experience as the days unfold. We are eager to hear from you and have created
multiple platforms for you to share your opinions with the Central Administration team and the Board of Education.
