A strong home-school partnership is always beneficial for students, and this was especially true during virtual school where parents were highly involved in supporting their child’s learning and success! During the last two weeks teachers have been connecting with parents regarding each child’s Virtual School (VS) experience and collecting feedback that may inform future virtual school enhancements should we have another campus closure. We received very positive feedback regarding clear communication from homeroom teachers, beginning of the day meetings, frequency of live Zoom sessions, consistency of homeroom schedule, G2-5 students being independent, teacher flexibility and support for each child as an individual, and overall positive experience in comparison to spring 2020. In addition, there was an overall recognition that VS can never replace face-to-face learning with the understanding that everyone was doing their very best to support each child under these circumstances.
Some of the feedback regarding possible enhancements to the ES Community Virtual School Handbook (linked here) that we are looking to incorporate into the updated plan based on parent feedback includes:
- a common PK-Grade 5 lunch time.
- more synchronous sessions in the areas of art, music and PE.
- clearer Woot Woot Wednesday communication.
- clarity/help regarding managing Seesaw at home.
- more VS preparation at school when face-to-face so students can be more independent with the tools at home.
- clarifying the maximum amount of time students can be in a Zoom session before a break.
Should you have any other virtual school feedback to share with us, please feel free to let me know!
Your partner in education,
Michael Allen, Ed.D.
michaela@isb.ac.th