Written by: Josh Griffin, Principal
I hope that your family had a nice Presidents Day weekend, and that this week has gone well for your student and family. As we conclude our fourth week in the hybrid learning model this semester, I remain grateful to our students, teachers, staff, and families for your continued engagement and support. As you have likely heard, there are ongoing discussions within the school district leadership team and among community members throughout Jefferson County about a plan for a 100% return to in-person learning during this school year. I am hopeful that by the end of this upcoming week (February 22-February 26), we will have more clarity around how the remainder of the school year will unfold. I appreciate your continued patience and understanding as we navigate frequent change, but am encouraged that we are beginning to thoughtfully consider the possibility of returning to increasingly normal school operations this year. As we approach March, we are preparing to administer our annual standardized assessments of student learning. As I am sure you can imagine, planning for standardized testing under the health and safety guidelines of the Covid-19 pandemic presents unique challenges for all of our community members. Standardized testing is an important component of our state’s public education system, and we are grateful to our students for their sincere efforts to succeed on these upcoming tests. We also recognize that standardized testing expectations do not dictate our curricular and instructional decisions at D’Evelyn. We believe in the value of a content-rich, liberal arts education, as integral in the development of the knowledge, skills, and character of our students. I encourage all D’Evelyn families to thoroughly review and consider the standardized testing article that Mr. Dan Wille has contributed to this week’s Jaguar Tracks. While CMAS testing in particular is largely impactful to our junior high students, the logistical planning required to account for current health and safety guidelines necessitates that our 2020-2021 school year standardized testing plan will impact the schedule of all students, grades 6-12. I appreciate Mr. Wille’s efforts to organize a safe, timely, and efficient assessment schedule, substantially limiting the impact that the testing schedule will have on the learning of all D’Evelyn students. We always seek to minimize the loss of instructional time for state-mandated standardized testing, and in this environment, we owe Mr. Wille a particular debt of gratitude for his efforts to streamline and minimize the system-wide impact of our testing schedule this spring. Thank you for your consideration and review of our standardized testing plans for the year, yet another example of the immense positive impact the support and engagement of D’Evelyn families has in our school community. I hope that you all have enjoyed a nice weekend!
Shelley Manzano
2/22/2021 11:03:35 am
As a parent I feel this is the worst idea yet. The constant changes to scheduling has been a nightmare, even though my child is 100% remote and has been all year, the inability for school administrators to make a decision and stick with it has been extremely frustrating. What is the point in changing everything 6 weeks before school is out? The time and effort trying to make things “normal” is a complete waste of resources.
Beth Aparicio
2/25/2021 01:32:30 pm
As the parent of a senior, I am very much in favor of the return to 100% in person learning. My child, as well as all his friends, are aching to be back in school together, especially since this is their last year and since they have missed out on so much already that is usually part of the senior year. If he were younger, it would not be as big of a deal because subsequent years are likely to be back to normal. This is the last chance for my son, his friends and all the seniors to experience as least a little bit of normallity for their senior year. Comments are closed.
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