June 4, 2021
Dear Families,
It is June, and we are thinking about September. Yesterday we welcomed our incoming 6th graders to the 75 Morton community with a virtual orientation. We can’t wait to meet them in person in the fall.
Ilene and I reached out to ask staff for the best way to message the families about next year. We know the pacing may be adjusted in those precious beginning weeks of September, leading into October.
From the 75 Morton Staff:
- We will be building a strong foundation as we transition back into the building.
- We will be moving into a post pandemic school world and it will take time to catch everyone up where they need to be. Thanks for your understanding and patience.
- We will focus on our students' well-being and the "whole child". Helping our students adjust back with thoughtful pacing, in the beginning, will only help our students long term.
- We will quickly pick up speed as we adjust like we always do.
- As we adapt to post- COVID life, it will take us some time. We have many things to re-learn and un-learn as many students spent a year learning behind screens. This will impact the academic pace but what a great opportunity to pause and really focus on what matters most.
- We will be building a foundation of learning with routines that cover work habits, social/emotional learning, and middle school systems early in the year, which will help boost confidence and promote grade-level work outputs.
- We will be meeting students where they are academically, not where we imagine or want them to be. It means that much of our instruction will be in conferences and small groups, especially next year. As students learn, we move our benchmarks. If there was ever a time to examine who sets academic standards, how they set them, and why--now is that time. This coming year should be about letting students and educators set the standards that make sense as we emerge from isolation following a global pandemic.
- We will be connecting back to learning together and building community in school. We suspect that social learning skills like class discussion, cooperation, and group learning will need to be practiced. Some students, used to daily work on Google classroom, may need help getting their footing back as self-directed learners in the classroom.
- We will focus on community building and developing relationships is important to focus on first, to create safe environments for learning and growth.
- We want to welcome them back by ensuring that they feel comfortable and safe, as well as develop the skills they need to be successful in a full-time, in-person middle school setting. We would like to give them the time to settle, get to know their teachers on a deeper level, and reconnect with their peers while providing them with support. Through this, we will enrich their academic experience through a project-based, meaningful and collaborative curriculum.
- We will exchange stories and come to know each other again, to build community and relationships, to rebuild norms and expectations, to assess where students are academically,
- We know children are resilient. September will be a big transition for many students. Children handle transitions differently. We want to make sure all of our students feel supported as they get re-acclimated to the "normal" school setting. We know they will be successful if we take our time in the beginning. We will be re-establishing norms, work habits, and nurturing their social-emotional well-being. We will be patient and flexible and ask that you trust us on this journey…
- We will embrace the idea of pairing content with care (caring for the whole student while also delivering content) and how that inevitably impacts pacing and curriculum choices. We need to honor that many students will not have been in a school building for a year or more so creating a re-entry to school culture that is responsive and supportive is key.
- We recognize that there will need to be time to process all the events of the past year and a half as well as adjust to being physically present with more people than students may have seen over the last 17 months. Acknowledging that we all have experienced trauma from COVID-19 we are approaching education through a trauma-informed lens and deliberately and strategically implementing our curriculum with this in mind.
- We know that to be able to teach our curricula well, we need to teach the whole student - if we don't have relationships built and if students do not feel safe at school, we cannot reach them academically either.
- We hope everyone has patience while we care for the students and help them meet their needs. While we might start off slow, we can assure you that our students will be ready for the next school year when it comes.
- We know that each year students come to us from different backgrounds and experiences and we learn together based on where we are as learners as well as a community. Every student will have the opportunity to excel at their grade level and explore their interests, and at the same time, there will be a concerted focus on fundamental skills needed for the outcomes we know are essential to their development socially and in school.
It is an amazing experience to lead a school with such informed, caring, experienced, and confident educators. This is just the tip of the iceberg- the staff will be deeply planned and very ready to respond to what our students need.
With Respect,
Jacqui and Ilene
