Principal's Corner

Hello Families,

First, I hope this finds you well during these stressful times. The few times I have seen the faces of the students, through a car window, on facebook or on a zoom meeting, it has been a delight. I am reminded why the educators at Fuente are working so hard. I am also reminded of the challenges you must be facing daily. We hope the program we are putting together helps support you in this time. Thank you for your patience as we have adjusted to this new effort.

We are excited to share that we have made some great progress this week in launching a distance learning program. Below is a description of our rollout timeline. To help you get a clearer picture we will be sending out a schedule for the first week soon. Throughout this process we will be following the CDE Distance Learning Guidelines which are updated weekly.

March 23-27- Connection and Access
This week we built on the work from last week to connect with families to ask if they have any needs such as school meals and internet services. A team sent home learning resources packets for every student that will be used in the coming weeks of remote learning. Teachers created simple websites to act as the delivery place of lessons and instructional online resources. We have signed up for the necessary zoom memberships for the school and teachers are getting themselves trained on how to use them for instruction. Teachers created a schedule for next week to provide connections with the classroom teachers, aides, the school counselor and directora.

March 30-April 3 One Connection and One Academic
The second week teachers will be providing one scheduled connection activity activity using video conference on Zoom. Teachers will also share one learning activity with students. Maestra Angela will join grade level meetings in second through fifth grade. Students will be introduced to class websites during their zoom conference. We plan to host an all school reunion on Monday and Friday morning and offer character education lessons. Finally, Maestra Ortega will offer art classes. We hope your student can participate in these opportunities as much as possible. The team is using this week to assess which types of activities are most doable for students from home. Teachers will be working on developing more learning opportunities online to supplement what resources are already in place. In summary, this is our test week for distance learning.

April 6-10 Distance Learning
Starting April 6 will transition to a distance learning program. A schedule is under development to provide consistent opportunities for teachers and students to connect. There will be both scheduled lessons and drop in hours. We will implement a schedule that incorporates one art, music or pe lesson per week as well as regular character education. Teachers will be posting academic activities in all subject areas. Extended day will offer enrichment classes and we may even pull off spirit week and a dance party! Each week teachers will assess and plan for the following week.
Beyond April 10
We are making plans for distance learning to continue beyond April 10th. The program will improve as we figure out what works best or as the local situation changes. By partnering with families we will find a nice balance of instructional offerings and support. We will continue to evaluate school reopening decisions in partnership with Humboldt County School Districts and the Humboldt County Public Health.

This is certainly a lot of information and it may be hard to see clearly what it all means. One step at a time we hope to make that clear for you. Next you will receive an email with instructions for the zoom meeting platform and an invitation to all school reunion on Monday at 8:30am. We will have tech support available throughout this distance learning program. This reunion will be used as a time to give families a chance to work out tech kinks prior to zoom meetings that are scheduled throughout the day Monday for each grade. The schedule will be coming to you soon.

Thank you all for your continued support. We are sending you all lots of love at this time. We miss the kids … big time! It is hard to go to school and see the empty rooms. Last night Scott our custodian texted me a picture and said the chairs are sad and miss the kids. We can’t wait to be together in person again, but for now we hope to get back to some of what is familiar through this distance learning program.

With gratitude,

Beth