Dear EVCS Families,
This week we embarked upon a totally new endeavor. EVCS has been teaching kids for decades, always with one constant: that kids and teachers were together, sharing and learning as a community. This week our teachers have been learning a lot about how to continue the important job of teaching our children without that time in a room together each day. This week, Bradley and I met with all of our teachers through group video chats – it was so nice to see one another again and talk through what we’re doing and planning for your kids. So much of this is still uncertain, but I wanted to share where we are now to help us all look toward next week.
All of our teachers reached out via phone and email over the past few days to find out how you’re doing and to ask about your child’s access to a laptop or tablet. Many of our families had a device for their child, and many of you were able to come by EVCS on Thursday to pick up a device for them to use. If you still don’t have a way to connect, please reach out to me and we will continue to work towards solving that problem.
On Monday, school begins again for all of our children. Our teachers have all set up Google Classrooms, and are preparing for daily assignments, work, and ways to connect. Your child should have a Google account (@evcs.me) and a unique password. If you need that information, please reach out to your child’s teacher. We expect that kids attend school every day, Monday-Friday. We know that there are lots of challenges in place, but just as we valued school on East 12th Street, we value it online as well. Once in the Classroom, your child will find out their daily schedule. We are asking that all of our kids go into Google Classroom at 9:30am each morning to begin the day. Our teachers will be posting that day’s schedule and lessons each morning, with everything ready by 9:30. The schedule for the day is suggested; we completely understand that we have to work within the confines of this new reality. So while it’s what we, as a school, suggest, we know that might not work for all of our families either and we want to be supportive and accommodating during this difficult time as well. Whether your child does their math assignment at 10am or 1pm doesn’t matter as much as them working hard on new content each day. For all of this, do what works best for your family and child in regards to schedules, workload, and structure for everyone. As a school, we’ll continue to provide a structured learning day for our students. But again, we understand that this structure may not align to how things are going at home, and that’s ok.
Our teachers are incredibly dedicated and smart individuals and we are learning a lot as we go. Because of this, how school looks on Monday may be different than it does by Friday, as we learn and adapt to best meet the needs of our kids and your families.
As the chancellor has said, we are building the airplane as we fly this week.
I’m proud of the work our teachers have done so far, and I know that in the next days, weeks, even months, we’ll soon be cruising along. There will be turbulence as we do so, but we are working diligently to make sure our kids are learning each and every day to meet standards, prepare for the next grade, and stay engaged in our learning community.
Please continue reaching out to your teachers, James, Bradley and myself. Even when not together, we’re a strong, EVCS community.
All the best,
Liz Wanttaja
she/her/hers
Assistant Principal
East Village Community School
