6-8th Reopening Plans and Ventilation (Thrilling!)

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Monday, November 9, 2020 LASD Board meeting will start its open session at 7:00pm and it will be held using the Zoom webinar platform.  To register in advance for the meeting, click here.  The entire agenda and supporting documentation for this week's meeting can be found here. 

First up, Sandra McGonagle will discuss Reopening Planning for 6-8th Grade Blended Learning.  This is a discussion item and her presentation can be under agenda item H.1. 

For 6th grade her team has offered 2 different scenarios for blended learning. 6th grade offers unique challenges for scheduling because their curriculum is uniquely designed to ease them into junior high. The first blended learning scenario is similar to what has been implemented K-5 with half the students coming Monday and Tuesday and the other half coming Thursday and Friday (with asynchronous learning 3 days of the week).  The second blended learning scenario involves half the class coming from 8:30am to 11:15am and the other half of the class coming from 12:05pm to 2:50pm on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.  Synchronous work would happen when they are in physical school and asynchronous work would happen at home.  Disinfecting of the classrooms would happen between cohorts.  Staff recommends the second scenario but understands it could be disruptive to families who expected the first scenario.

For 7th and 8th, the team planning had the following driving principles: 

• Social Emotional Learning and Support
• In person community and socializing with peers
• Support for struggling students
• Robust instructional practices
• Equity in educational practices (steering away from cohorting by math pathways)

Staff and the planning team is recommending that 7th and 8th graders come in our traditional blended model with 1/2 coming in person Monday and Tuesday and the other 1/2 coming Thursday and Friday. On in person days students will come from 8:30 to 12:05 and will have 4 periods, 50 minutes each of Science, History, English and Support, then will go home and have virtual Math and virtual Elective or PE (alternating).  On at home days, students will have synchronous Math, synchronous Elective or PE (alternating), synchronous English, and then synchronous History or Science (alternating).  

7th and 8th Grade Virtual School will follow the same schedule of 7th and 8th Grade Blended Model.  Virtual School students will be assigned cohorts just like their Blended School peers.  The only difference for virtual school students is that all their courses will be online, while Blended will have in person instruction two days a week.  It is also important to note that both Virtual and Blended students may experience a change in the order of their courses and/or be assigned different teachers.  That being said, disruption will be tried to minimized as much as possible.  

Next, Randy Kenyon will present a Health and Safety Reopening Report specifically focused on Ventilation.  This is a discussion item and his presentation can be found under agenda item H.2. The District has been hard at work focusing on improving the air quality in our classrooms. Facilities crews have tested our HVAC systems to make sure they work properly, installed better filters and are replacing them more frequently and will be monitoring the indoor air quality with CO2 sensors.  

Please note, these are just the highlights of what to expect at our 11/9/2020 meeting.  You can inform yourself about the rest of the agenda at the link provided above.  As always, feel free to email me with any questions.