In last Friday's LFS Weekly Notes, we announced our decision to begin the school year teaching virtually in grades K to 6. This was a very difficult, heart-wrenching choice, because we know how hard it has been for our children not to be in school with their classmates and their teachers over these past six months. We also recognize the heavy, continuing burden this places on parents of young children, who are trying to balance their own work responsibilities with parenting and now educating as well from home. When considering the health risks to the LFS and the broader community, we weighed these issues in reaching what is clearly an imperfect decision among imperfect options.
At the same time, while we recognize that distance learning can never fully replace in-person instruction, we have worked hard over many weeks to further develop and fine-tune our distance learning program. We believe that we have built on the successes and addressed shortcomings that we experienced last spring--and that we can deliver a robust distance learning program that both engages children in interactive learning across all subjects and addresses kids' social and emotional needs within our tight-knit Quaker community. Our expectation is that all students will fully participate in our distance learning program through daily attendance and completion of assignments and projects. It's also worth noting that we see the measure of our program's success not in the number of hours children are in front of the computer screen; we are mindful that there's a tipping point to how much children can or should learn this way. So our weekly schedule and approach to distance teaching strives to balance the need to use the technology while also helping children to learn away from the computer and through more hands-on approaches, in keeping with our school's philosophy.
We don't pretend that launching the school year remotely in grades K to 6 will be seamless or easy, but we are proud of the program we are able to offer, and I personally am grateful to the teachers who have put so much time and energy all summer into these plans, even when it wasn't clear we would deploy them.
To learn more specifics about our distance learning program, please see the following documents:
Please also join us at a distance learning "Zoom" orientation for all parents of children in grades K to 6 this coming Monday, August 31 at 6:45-8:15PM. There we will strive to answer any questions that you may have and provide an overview of the program, including the use of Chromebooks, which we will be distributing to every student to enable their full participation in our program. Here's the Zoom link for the orientation:
Note that we continue to ready our campus and our extensive health and safety procedures for the time when all students and teachers will be able to be on campus. We also continue to monitor COVID statistics locally and to consult with the Chester County Health Department as we look to resume normal on-campus schooling as soon as possible.
I also do not want us to forget our Pre-K students and their families. Kathi, Jenn, and all the Pre-K specials teachers eagerly await the arrival on campus of our youngest students. Pre-K parents, we invite you to join us for a Pre-K family orientation on Wednesday, September 3, at 6:30 pm. You can join HERE.There we will be addressing any and all questions about LFS's return-to-campus health and safety guidelines--the same ones we hope to put in place for ALL students and their families as soon as possible.
Finally, I have greatly appreciated the parents who have spoken with me recently, even when we may not have fully agreed. The mark to me of a healthy community is one where opinions are expressed honestly and respectfully, and LFS has passed this test with flying colors. So please continue to reach out to me with your thoughts and questions. I enjoy getting to know you through these conversations, and I continue to learn from your experiences as we navigate these unprecedented and turbulent COVID waters together.
