so
hello everyone and welcome to this
parent connections workshop
as we gear up for the 2020-2021 school
year
as a reminder before we begin this
thursday will be the final bb safe
together
information session hosted by dr spence
question will be questions will be asked
by parents students staff and community
members
about the reopening of school for the
2020-2021
school year questions will be answered
by bpcps leadership and we hope that you
will join us at six o'clock p.m
on thursday as we begin this workshop
i would like to remind you of the
structure this session will cover three
topics
a schoology tutorial understanding the
4x4 schedule for middle and high school
students and families
and the last session is focused on
answering a few questions
that students have given us
my name is dr admin alexander the
director of the office of family and
community engagement
i am excited for our session today as i
hope this session continues to add
clarity
for parents and students as we begin the
start of a new school year
our first session will be a tutorial on
schoology brought to
you by dr excuse me director of
instructional technology
dr sharon shoebridge welcome and thank
you for joining us dr schubridge
hi everybody thank you so much so if
it's all right i'm just going to go
ahead and get started right dr alexander
absolutely okay so i'm going to share my
screen
i want to be helpful if i started at the
beginning all right so my name is sharon
shubridge i am the director of
instructional technology for virginia
beach city public schools
and tonight i'm excited to have an
opportunity to walk you through
three of the applications that are going
to be critical for your success with
your students this school year
so the first one is um as you were
waiting in the waiting room
for us to start we had a calendar of
events leading up to the start of the
school year
just some reminders to do with
technology like find the chromebook in
cord
make sure the device is charged check
that your student's password still works
and starting today we went live this
morning with classlink which is our new
launchpad
for all instructional resources and
classlink is a single sign-on platform
that is going to allow our students to
safely and securely access
all of the applications and resources
that we have for them
in the past you may have heard the term
clever students can access clever
well classlink is the new portal for
students to access their resources
and we in the picture if you notice it
looks the same
on a computer on an ipad on a phone
whether it's an android or an apple
phone
and the goal of this was that it would
have have a seamless look for students
and for parents so parents would be able
to help their children find the
resources that they were looking for
when your student logs into their
chromebook for the first time
after today they're going to go directly
to this launchpad
so your students device will look like
this once they've logged in
the benefit of this is that the
schoology
application is right on the dashboard
for the students
it's right here for the students to
access there's no more clicking to
search for it so they log in
they can click right on schoology it'll
take them to their teachers courses
we've also got set up for your students
very touchy computer
their textbook resources so however they
are enrolled in school
they will have a textbook folder that's
specific to the courses that they have
signed up for
so you won't have to search for the math
analysis text resource
or the grade four math book it'll write
b it'll be in that textbook folder for
the students
there's also reference databases as well
as your g
suite information all of that is going
to be right there on the launch pad for
your
students and if you notice down here at
the bottom
see this is what's going to happen next
week when your teachers start and i want
you to have flexibility and grace and
smile along with them when they make a
mistake
down at the bottom there is a picture of
a backpack and when you click on the
backpack
it takes you into the list of all the
courses your student is signed up for
and off to the right if you notice all
of these icons
those are all of the applications that
are aligned to your students course
so again you don't have to go into
another platform to find
their resources they're right there in
their backpack on the front page of
classlink so we're very excited that
that launched this morning
the other piece i wanted to remind you
of is parent portal
if you have not yet signed up for a
parent view account
we strongly encourage you to go to
vbschools.com
parents under the parent tab click on
parent portal
and you can create or log into your
parent portal account
the parent portal account once you log
in
will take you directly to your student
or students if you have more than one
and the beauty right now is it's opening
right on your child's class schedule
because we know that there's been a lot
of questions about who's my child going
to have next year and if they're in
secondary what will their schedule look
like
so it will open directly to your child's
class schedule
and you can fluctuate between your
students toggle between your students to
see their schedule
if you notice on the screen down here in
the corner
there is a button that says schoology
and when you click on that
there are two options there's parent
support for schoology
or there's the schoology parent access
and that's where we're going to spend
the bulk of our time this evening
so here is one way for you to be able to
access your child's schoology account
and schoology is going to be an
important resource for you as a division
k-12 it is our learning management
system
this is where all of our teachers will
post their
um course information for their students
including assignments reminders
updates when you as a parent go in
through
your parent view if you notice over here
it's got my name
but there's a drop down
you can see my two daughters i have two
daughters going into kellum high school
and if you know them please don't tell
them i'm using them for an example
they'll be horrified
but i'm going to use ainslie for my
example today so when i click on ainsley
and her dashboard i can see she's
already got some upcoming assignments
okay so right here this is an important
on the right side
there is a box of upcoming assignments
so as a parent i can see that there's
going to be things that she's going to
need to do within that first week of
school
there's also over here her current
courses
as well as her current groups and i'm
going to start up here at the top and
i'm going to click on courses
now for the purposes of having a
demonstration
these are obviously not her courses
she's not in elementary school but i
wanted you to see the difference in how
we are asking teachers to set up their
schoology courses this year
so i'm going to start in elementary and
give you an example of an elementary
school homeroom
so all of your students in elementary
are assigned a homeroom
and within that homeroom there is going
to be a folder called welcome
and within that welcome folder will be
the important information to start the
year
so in the absence of an open house we
have created a virtual open house
inside every teacher's schoology course
in elementary
in their homeroom folder called welcome
so there's a welcome message
from the teacher that will include
information on
where the video conference link for the
first day of school will be
when the teacher is going to hold office
hours
how you can reach the teacher if you
have any questions
there's also going to be inside the
folder
a powerpoint presentation from the
teacher
with just information about welcome to
my class
information about your teacher contact
information
we wanted opportunities for teachers to
be able to share with their students
i got to figure out how to get out of
here there we go
information about them
i'm going to go into an actual example
of a math course
so right here's a third grade math
example
and inside what we've asked teachers to
do is to make sure
that they label the folders in such a
way that parents will know
when things are happening so this first
folder
prime and composite will start on
september 10th
and on september 17th they will start
working through the odd and even
portion of that unit we wanted to have
some consistent
formatting some consistent labeling for
parents so that depending upon the
student you're
looking at you'll be able to find things
easier
i also while i'm in here want to take a
moment to point out the left side
navigation bar
on the left side this is where there's
materials you can see the members of the
course
this conferences button is another tool
your students may use
if the teacher wants them to do a small
group breakout she might ask them to go
to the schoology conferences
i just wanted you to be aware this is
where it lives
on the dashboard and then these are some
of our resource books
and wevideo is a tool we have this year
that students can use to create
videos on the things that they're
learning and a
very easy to use tool very easy to use
resource
i want to show you this high school
course
because again in high school there isn't
a technical home room
each teacher is going to create a
welcome folder or a course information
folder
and again if you notice the navigation
bar on the left
has many of the same we have kept that
consistent k-12
on the right side again you can see the
calendar
so specifically for this english course
ainsley has two assessments that are
coming up
there's a preliminary assessment on
rhetoric
and there's an academic vocabulary task
inside the welcome folder again because
we were trying to keep it as consistent
as possible
there's the welcome powerpoint from the
teacher as well as
where the office hours will be in the
times
and we're hoping that this will be
helpful for all of our students as they
are navigating
within i'm going to take a moment to
talk to you the difference between
courses and groups so of course those
are all of the instructional
components of your students day their
math language arts social studies
maybe it's their theater but they also
might have groups
and their groups so in my daughter's
instance is as a student at kellum she
was in the drama club
all of the kellum students have a group
there's a counseling group
and so your students might also then be
part of an academic group a club group
an enrichment group
this is where that information will will
be stored and the benefit of that is
teachers the sponsors for those can post
tryout information
meeting information when things are
happening
and so again for your students it's in
one location
along the top navigation bar there is a
calendar
so you'll see when it populates when i
go to september because it is the last
day of august
you can see on this calendar that there
are things that are due and when they
are due
and if your child is in a group and the
sponsor uses the calendar those things
from the sponsors group will also appear
on your students calendar we are
strongly encouraging teachers and club
sponsors to use this calendar feature
this year
to help parents navigate where their
students need to be within their courses
over here on this bar there's a section
i want to take you to because i realized
that this is something maybe our parents
had not turned on before so i'm going to
click back on my daughter's name and
you'll see down lower
you can see my two daughters i can add a
child i can update my profile or i can
go to settings
when you go to settings
please verify your information
including your primary email address
make sure that that is the information
that you want the schools to have and if
there's any changes you can make those
changes
if you needed to change your password or
you needed to update anything
you can do that under account settings
but important part here is notifications
and as you see i have them off but i
could receive
a weekly or daily email report of my
child's activity
in schoology and as a parent and i'm
trying to make sure
i am aware of what my student is doing
i can on a weekly basis receive on
sunday night
or friday night maybe i'll do it friday
night at five i can get a weekly report
of what my child has been doing
in schoology and i can also receive
a report if my child has something past
due so if they have missed a due date on
an assignment
i can get an email notification
to give me an opportunity to go back
into schoology to see maybe my child
just forgot to submit
because that happens a lot for our
students they get all the work done
and they forget to hit submit and it may
just be as simple as reminding your
child to hit submit
or it may be trying to understand why
they have not been able to keep up with
that work
and again reaching out to the teacher
but i'm going to save those changes
and now on a weekly basis or when my
child has not submitted something
i can get an email notification to keep
me on track with my student
and my students work i'm going to go
back into courses
i wanted to make sure i've covered
everything that
we had for you
okay the one last thing i'll show you
here is underneath this course
there is a button that says student
progress this may or may not appear in
every course
if it is there it is a benefit you can
see how your student is working through
each of the tasks that the teacher has
assigned but not every teacher uses the
student progress button
it's just a benefit and if it's there
you can see why
and how your child could use it
and that is
and that is everything dr alexander is
there anything you think i didn't share
within schoology that
parents might need to know no
i i i think it's great i actually
learned a lot more information about
schoology as well so thank you
dr schubert um i did have just a couple
kind of follow-up questions
for you um one is in your opinion
with schoology i know a lot of parents
um are trying to access this but why is
it so important that parents
are know this information
that's a great question um in this
especially in this environment as we're
starting
this is going to be your as a parent
this is my way of knowing exactly what's
going on in the class
so in a face-to-face world i could have
gone to an open house i would have met
my child's teacher
the teacher would have talked to me
about the syllabus or this is what the
course expectations are this is what
we're working on
and in the absence of that the teachers
one have to have a way to get that
information out to parents
the parents also have to have one
location where they can find all of that
and schoology is going to be that
resource
and as your student is getting
assignments as your student is
interacting with their peers and in
school
it's a great place for you to find what
are they reading
i'm not sure about all of you but when i
my kids come home from school i have to
say you know what was your best part of
your day and you can't say pe
or lunch so like we have to set
parameters so they have to talk about
something that happened at school well i
can go into
the english course and i can already
know
that they've been doing something about
the american dream
and i can ask a specific question about
the american dream
and what my daughter's perception of
that is because i'm able to see what the
teacher is putting out i can talk to my
child about
um the pit in the pendulum and
you know ask what her thoughts were
about that it gives me something to talk
to my student about
that's a little more specific to what
they're doing on a daily basis
and i also think being able to see the
assignments your student has
um how they're doing with keeping up
with their assignments if you notice
that there are a lot of assignments all
being done at the same time
that creates an opportunity for you to
have a conversation with the child's
teacher
or the school counselor to say help me
understand why everything seems to be
due at thursday
you know it's difficult for my child to
have everything do on the same day
it's information the best way you can
support your student is if you have
information
to then work with the school to work
with your student to keep them on track
awesome thank you dr schubert and i love
the notification pieces too and you're
right
everything is all information um but the
notification i think will really help
parents to
you know stay on top of things as we all
use notifications in our daily lives of
you know uh you know i have one to drink
water that's my notification
i have two every every two hours i have
a notification
last year um so the last question i have
is uh for you
are are there gonna be other tutorials
available that parents can access and if
so
where would they be located that's a
great question too and actually i'm
going to stop sharing this
and give me just one moment because i
have just today
so this is hot off the press
we have been working with the department
of technology and we were able to
under the vbcpsupport.com
website that david din and his
department of technology team have put
together for parents to use to access
again that was vbcpsupport.com
under support there is a location for
parents that are called instructional
resource videos
and in when you click on
that and scroll down we have a playlist
of instructional resource videos for
parents
um we have videos on schoology
um there's one for parents there's one
on the difference between parent and
student accounts because there are some
things that are not visible in the
parent account that the student can see
we have a class link video and so we
will continue to add videos there's a
seesaw video as we
have instructional videos that we're
creating for parents at home
to help them do a have a better
understanding of how they can support
their student we will continue to add
these
to our instructional resource link off
of the department
of technology support page so off of
bbcpsupport.com
under support for parents and you'll see
the instructional resource videos and
like i said we're going to continue to
add to those and
every time we have a need from a parent
that for example they don't know why
they're using ixl
which is a math program and how do i use
ixl we'll have an instructional resource
video and we'll add it there so that
parents have some place to go to find
more information to support their
student at home
uh dr schroeder that is amazing and
awesome so thank you
and on behalf of parents too i'm
definitely thank you because
i know you know as technology moves
along very quickly you know a lot of
times uh parents can't keep up with it
and it's no fault of their own it's just
things change very quickly and um you
know our students are
can keep up with it but sometimes we
can't and i think that
just having that information is is so
helpful to
be able to stop and rewind and stop
again and rewind to go back and make
sure you really know
what you're doing so thank you so much
to you and your team for producing those
certainly most of it is we appreciate
the feedback we got a lot of feedback in
the spring
about you know is there a way that we
can find these videos for support
um boy if schoology could look
consistent across k12
there was a lot of feedback we got in
the spring and we took all of that
feedback worked with our partners in the
department of teaching and learning
really tried to streamline things for
parents to make it easier for them
to support their students at home so
we're hoping you know there will get
more feedback as the
fall semester begins and we'll try to
keep things as updated as we can
as parents have a need awesome thank you
dr schubert
um of course thanks for being a part of
the parent connection
um so as we move along and i know dr
schuber is going to join us later on um
to answer a few questions um
that students had we're going to move
continue to move forward to our next
topic
um which is really how to with the press
press as well and understand the 4x4
schedule in order to do that
mr matt delaney has joined us mr delaney
is the executive director of
secondary teaching and learning and he's
going to talk to you about the new 4x4
schedule for middle and high schools
mr delaney welcome thank you dr
alexander
good evening and thank you to dr
shoebridge for her informative
presentation as a
parent of high school students i don't
think they'd appreciate a friday night
notification email
on their schoology uh report but
you know they would vote no on fridays
but i appreciate
being here this evening welcome to those
of you that are here it's been a
very pleasurable experience for me to be
a part of this parent connection over
the last few weeks as i've
grown to see how informative it is to
our parent groups and and for our
teachers that are really
dealing with a time of uncertainty and
really anxious about the start of the
school year
as dr alexander said i'm here to talk a
little bit about the 4x4 schedule for
the middle school and high school
students
as many of you may know this is a change
from
what has been done over previous years
we were typically on what is called an a
b
block schedule so the purpose of my time
with you today is to just talk about why
did why the move to a 4x4 schedule
give you more concrete information on
what is the 4x4 schedule how does it
impact our
day-to-day schedule and then what are
the keys to really being
successful as dr shoebridge talked about
the schedules were made available today
i know my children at home were quick to
check and see who their teachers were
and what their classes are to start the
year
and i'm sure your students and parents
on the on the
call this evening are probably wanting
some answers to some questions
in each of our presentations so far this
year we've talked about
the component of that there's the option
one of face-to-face learning and the
option to a virtual learning
again it's important to emphasize that
those are things that we've never done
before as we also prepare
for a face-to-face return at some point
in time so we are busy planning
and trying to finalize plans of the
option one and option two virtual
learning space
and continuing those plans we also feel
like it's important especially in this
presentation
to remind everyone the difference
between the emergency learning plan and
what we're looking at in the fall
for 2020. one of the big components of
the schedule is that we wanted to ensure
that embedded in the schedules in this
bold print on the right side of the
screen here
that remediation and acceleration
opportunities were embedded
in our scheduling but i think the three
most important
things to recognize that are different
in the fall than what was going on in
the emergency learning plan is that
there will be synchronous
live instruction in which teachers are
working directly with students there
will also be opportunities for
asynchronous instruction
but their difference in this component
is there's an expectation that
that students are engaging with their
teachers engaging with their peers
and many times interacting with the
content in a live format
also in the fall of 2020 assignments
will be graded
feedback will be provided and attendance
will be monitored and counted
so those are all three major changes
from what students experience
virtually in the in the spring you you
factor all that in with the with the the
idea that this is the first time we've
ever started a school year virtually
we also are in plans at some point to
transition back to a level of
face-to-face instruction
while allowing some kids to stay virtual
and there's always the potential that we
have to plan for that we could go back
to virtual again
i say all of those things to for parents
and students to recognize
that we're going to have to have a
significant amount of flexibility and
understanding for the work our teachers
are doing
the time they're putting in to ensure
that they're creating the best
educational environment for our students
and the challenge that they're they're
looking to overcome as we start the
school year
so the question probably on many of your
minds is why are we going to a four by
four schedule this year and if you've
listened to dr spence throughout the
summer or school board meetings or
looked at the instructional
learning plan for the year you heard
quite often that
we were getting guidance from many of
our health professionals we were looking
at health mitigation needs
and really had to look at creating a
schedule on the elementary middle and
high school level that will maximize
all health and safety protocols will
minimize the academic load for all
students knowing that we're starting
virtually
and the potential at some point at any
time of the year we may have to return
virtually after coming face to face
minimizing the number of courses that a
student is responsible for
we wanted to minimize the transitions in
a school building and maximize the use
of cohorts
that's extremely challenging on the high
school level and on the middle school
level where you have a variety of
different classes and courses
that require you to transition to
teachers that are specifically certified
in those courses
and it's difficult to cohort so the use
of the 4x4 schedule does provide some
level of minimizing the number of
interactions between students where in
the previous a b
schedule student may have six to eight
classes over a two day period
we'll talk a little bit more about the
four 4x4 but is essentially going
anywhere
from three to four classes every day
with the same set of students
we also felt it was important to
minimize the teacher to student ratio
in the in the four by four schedule
teachers aren't as responsible for as
many kids per term
as they are during the av schedule and
we also want to highlight the need to
focus continually on student and staff
well-being and we'll talk a little bit
about
what that looks like but that is the why
for this year
of going to the 4x4 schedule when we
took these components and this goal in
place and met with secondary principles
the 4x4 schedule became the the most
logical landing spot
so what is the 4x4 block schedule
essentially the 4x4 block schedule is
broken down into two academic terms we
call them term one and term
two within each term there's two
semesters in each term
so for the year there will be a total of
four semesters
in previous scheduling models you were
you were used to on a grading scale of
four
of two semesters now you know four by
four you have four semesters
there are four marking periods each
semester so there will be a total of
eight marking periods for the year
students will have the same three to
four classes each day for a term
and then they will get three to four new
classes when we start term two
essentially students can complete six to
eight classes in a school year
this question has come up often high
school students can still
obtain eight credits by the end of the
year as they did previously
on the standard a b block schedule
this may be confusing so i want to share
with you the school calendar
and this was approved by the secondary
calendar was
approved by the school board as last
meeting if you look at the top the
2020-21 school year will begin on
tuesday september 8th and conclude on
june 18th
so here's where you can see the
differences now in terms of how the
scheduling applies on the 4x4
term 1 begins september 8th and will end
on january 29th
the first semester of term one will take
place from september 8th
to november 10th marking period 1
is september 8th to october 7th
i highlight in blue the october 7th
because that
is a different date than what we're
accustomed to typically the first
marking period ends in november
it's important for everyone to mark on
their calendar that the end of the first
marking
period is on october 7th
i want to also go back and note that
your child will be meeting with the same
teachers
every day during the marking period one
in previous schedules they met with
their teacher every other day
so again they will be meeting with their
teachers every day
uh starting on september 8th marking
period two goes from october 8th
to november 10th and that will end the
first semester
of term one on november the 10th
semester two will begin on november 12th
and until january 29th
marking period three will go from
november 12th to december 16th
mark in period four from december 17 to
january 29th
so on january 29th will earn end
term one your child would have completed
a full course
in that term received a final grade
for that course in term one for our
students that are in credit bearing
courses
our high school students typically but
we do have some middle school students
involved
they will receive their verified credit
at the end
or their credit for finalizing the
course at the end of that term
so the potential exists for a high
school student at the end of term one to
have earned
three to four credits at the end of term
one
beginning on february 2nd they will
transition to
term two semester one will go from
february 2nd to april 14th
marking period one of term 2 will go
from february 2nd
to march 4th marking period 2 from march
8th to april 14th and that will end
semester 1
of term 2 on april 14th
beginning on april 15th and running to
the end of the year of june 18th we'll
begin september
i'm sorry we'll begin semester two of
term two
marking period three will go from april
15th
through may 12th that will conclude
marking period 3 and market period 4
will go from may 13th
to june 18th at the end of june 18th
that will conclude
term two students receive their final
grades
and have the potential to earn three to
four credits
on the high school level or in some
middle school middle school courses
at the end of that term two
so again the key components are
essentially at the during each term
students will have the ability to
complete an entire year's course
of the typical a b schedule that they
were accustomed to in previous
previous years and complete that course
in each term
due to the fact they'll meet that class
daily with the same teacher
i want to take note of then also what is
the high school virtual 4x4 schedule
look like and
so when you look at starting the year on
september the 8th
it's important for students and parents
to understand how the schedule will
operate on a day-to-day time schedule
as we talked about previously mondays
will continue to be a day of
professional learning
and tutoring and office hours provided
the school level
i'll talk a little more about that in a
moment the times on the high school
virtual only
beginning on september 8th the first
period class will begin
at 8 30. students should report to that
class at that time as dr schubridge
shared in her presentation
information is coming out for students
to understand how to log into that class
getting a welcoming email from their
their teacher and and finding updates in
their schoology courses
block 2 will begin at 9 55
and run until 11 10.
students will have a break and in some
cases there will be an advisory session
or an sel support session scheduled at
the school level
from 11 15 to 12 15. block
three will begin at 12 15 and run until
1 30
block 4 will begin at 1 40 and end at 2
55.
it's important for you to note that
those are 75-minute sessions but we've
talked to teachers about how to operate
within that 75 minutes
it is not our expectation per se that
students are completely locked into the
screen
for 75 minutes each block as we
recognize the amount of time
that this entails during a particular
school day
noted at the end from 305 to 3 50
tuesday through friday there's
opportunities for teachers to be
available for
office hours our students with
disabilities our english language
learners to receive
support students to work on asynchronous
work
potential for parent conferences to be
held and also wanted to ensure that our
clubs and athletic teams could still
meet even though we're in a virtual
world
during this time so essentially after
school activities on the high school
virtual only schedule
would go from 305 to 350.
again i want to highlight if you look
back up on the on the schedule and you
see block one block one block one block
one
those students will be in that same
class
every period and we'll go into more
detail with that in a few moments
it's important to note that when we
return on the high school level to face
to face
scheduling when we start to return
students into the building to receive
instruction
that the scheduling times will change
and the reasons for this change is
is for a couple of reasons one
it has to match our transportation needs
in order for us to be able to transport
students back to schools on the high
school
middle school and elementary school
level high school students will have to
return to their start time of 7 20 in
the morning this is no different than
what they've had in previous years
we felt like with the virtual beginning
of the school year
that we could provide some grace to
students and start a little bit later in
the virtual world
but when we go back to face to face all
students on the high school level
face to face and virtual will begin
their day at 7
20. i talked about the transportation
pieces but we also need to consider
other components such as how some
in some instances we share school staff
across buildings and
across classrooms those times must be
aligned
not only in the face-to-face world in
the virtual world
and we also must have them aligned to
our centers such as our advanced
technology center
our career technical education center
and our environmental studies program
center
they also must be aligned to meet the
transportation needs and the
course needs of our students so there'll
be a shift during those times of 7
20 to 8 50. if you paid attention the
instructional plan and other school
board meetings
face-to-face instruction is going to be
determined by
a variety of factors to include health
metrics
such as the metrics of being in yellow
and yellow but there's other
considerations that are being
utilized as well prior to that return i
want to highlight as well did you see
90 minutes for block one we wanted to
ensure that this allows for students to
have breakfast
during that time of entry to the school
and also
to ensure that we have safe transitions
from our school bus
parking lots and from our student
parking lots that students enter the
building safely
and maintain the health mitigation
procedures that exist in that area
so again to be extremely clear here we
have two separate
components but on september the 8th
students will re
will begin courses at 8 30 on the high
school level
it's not as complicated on the middle
school level from a scheduling
standpoint
a virtual 4x4 schedule some students may
have a zero bell
and that should show on your schedule
i'm certain when you receive
communications from your home school
they will
explain the zero bell concept and how it
applies at each school
there's a component of checking in at 10
o'clock to 10 25 for sel advisory
again our schools will send out
communications on expectations and
means for students to log into those
sessions
and then the block one on the middle
school level will begin at 10
30 and go until 11 45
so students will be expected to log in
at 10 30
for their block one courses they will
begin
block two at twelve they will receive a
fifty minute break
for lunch at one twenty and return for
block
three at two fifteen to 3 30.
so when you look at your student's
schedule in the middle school level you
will see it identified as a block
one block two and block three the fourth
block component of the middle school
schedule is what you see at the bottom
there which is a 45 minute
literacy numeracy support enrichment
block
i take you back to what was shared at
the beginning of the presentation that
we wanted to ensure
that we we provided opportunities for
students to to identify
gaps that may have existed from lost
time in the spring or opportunities for
students to receive enrichment as they
as they need the focus in many cases
will be on reading and mathematics
and that time will be geared towards the
needs of the individual building and the
students that are served in those
buildings
just want to clarify a little bit of the
expectations for students on mondays
as we shared before teachers will be
engaged in professional learning they're
going to have opportunities to plan for
the upcoming weeks they're going to have
the opportunities to grade
but they may also take advantage of this
time to to work with students
individually in order to address gaps or
provide the enrichment i spoke about
before
they will have an opportunity to
schedule teacher conferences
participate in school tutoring sessions
and if school counselors want to hold
conferences with students and families
they can do so at that time as well
it's an opportune time for students to
complete tasks as assigned by the
teachers
but i want to be perfectly clear that
the teachers in the school building are
going to
direct and control the expectations of
what students are
being asked to do on those mondays
as i spoke about earlier today and dr
shoebridge showed this on her screen
as well schedules went out to students
today via
parent portal my hope is that you've had
opportunity to access that if not
you can go to vb schools and you click
on the parent tab
and you go to parent portal and you log
in to your parent portal
app as dr schubert showed in her
presentation
she showed you a screenshot of what a
schedule would look like so i'm just
going to talk a little bit about what
you might see
when you pick up a sample high school
student schedule
so i'm providing you a sample high
school student schedule we're looking at
a student who might be in the ninth
grade
and as you look at that schedule it says
on parent view students schedule for
term one
it'll have on the left period one period
two period three period four
that talks about what i addressed in
previous slides of what they're going to
take on that first
class it then gives you the course title
the room name and the teacher name so in
this instance the student will report to
art foundations during first period of
term one every day
student will report during period two to
world geography
every day and then in period three they
will report to algebra
every day and for period four they will
report to their environmental
science course every day what i mean
again by every day is every tuesday
wednesday thursday friday
they will log into that class and
interact with their teachers interact
with their peers and
importantly interact with the content
that they've registered for in those
course titles
some of you may see a schedule
that has something that says academic
support
located in a course title so using a
similar
sample schedule student has art
foundation's first period world
geography second block
second period algebra third period and
academic support fourth period
the academic support period is an
opportunity for a student to maintain
to receive tutoring to get enrichment to
potentially complete additional
assignments to connect with a teacher in
that class to answer questions
so if you see that academic support
block on there students should be
reporting that class to complete the
assigned work that has been
provided in other cl in other classes
on the middle school level it may look a
variety of ways on parent view there's
two i'm going to provide for you here
this is an example of a grade six
potential course for a student
so in period one the student would
attend course social studies
in the room number provided with the
teacher listed on the schedule
for period two they would attend
orchestra six
room number teacher provided in period 3
they would
attend pre-algebra again with the room
number
and the teacher that's listed not to
sound like a broken record but they'll
attend these classes every day
tuesday through friday blocks one two
and three at the designated times that
were provided
earlier in the slide presentation
in some instances i've seen schools that
have added something to their fourth
class
it talks about core social studies
orchestra six pre-algebra and they may
have listed a study hall
for the year this is another form of an
academic support block
if you look at the previous slide where
only three classes were listed
i want to go back to what we shared
earlier that there's going to be a
literacy numeracy enrichment block
provided for those students as well
so if you only see three courses listed
on your schedule and parent view at your
middle school
recognize that they will be provided
with communications around
how they are to log into the literacy
numeracy support block
what that will look like from a zoom
google meet standpoint
and additional communications to access
that level of support in richmond
i provided you with three samples of
schedules but i think it's important
that many of you if you have not already
will be receiving in upcoming days
communications from your middle school
administration around how to interpret
the schedule
how to address any concerns around the
schedule
so it's important that you review that
communication
view videos that might be provided by
those schools as they will provide
additional school-based clarification
on the scheduling that they are provided
there are a few other elements that i
want to make sure that we identify
of considerations or questions that come
up in the 4x4 schedule
a question that comes up often is around
sol assessments
and whether or not a student if they're
taking a an sol
course in term one when will they take
that sol assessment
typically in the a b block schedule our
students are
accustomed to taking their end of the
year sol assessments in may and june
it is a little bit different or
significantly different in the 4x4
schedule so students that are eligible
for sol tests will take the
corresponding
sol at the end of each term
so the example that i'll provide for you
is if you recall the high school
schedule that i shared in term one
a student was enrolled in algebra and
world geography in term one
algebra and world geography are both sol
courses so that student would take the
corresponding sol
for algebra and world geography
in the at the end of term one in january
i also want to remind everyone that to
recall that students are taking a
full year's worth of coursework in term
one
which is similar to how they're assessed
previously where they take a
an assessment at the end of a four years
coursework on the a b
schedule so again students will take in
those courses are eligible for sol tests
we'll take the corresponding sol at the
end of each term
there's also several questions and and
concerns around
advanced placement courses in the 4x4
format
traditionally students would take those
the ap exams in may they still will do
that
but the impact is concerns around if my
child is taking an ap
course in term one how will they be
prepared for
an ap exam that it will occur in may and
they're no longer in the class
also the question that comes up is will
there be enough time
for a student in term two to be prepared
for the ap assessment
in may we have several supports and
resources
that are in place for students and
teachers
teachers are working diligently as we
speak they're collaborating with
fellow teachers across the school
division to make sure
the pacing is aligned to the needs of
the students in the class
looking at how they're going to provide
tutoring opportunities on mondays and
other opportunities throughout
the week scheduling boot camps for for
students to participate in at several
schools this summer at boot camps
as an introductory uh component for
students to start the year
there's going to be advanced placement
workshops there's several resources that
the college board is providing
excuse me to assist students to get
prepared we understand that the the
stress and strain that this puts on
students as they're walking into
unchartered waters of a four by four
uh schedule and we're we're confident
that we're going to work diligently to
put those supports in place
to ensure that they're ready several
school divisions across the state
utilize a four by four we've
collaborated with those states as well
i'm sorry with those schools those
divisions to to recognize best practices
and we feel like we have a plan in place
to support students moving forward
it's important to understand that
teachers and schools will develop those
supports and will be able to work with
with students to provide the level of
clarity so they see that the
possibilities exist for them to be
prepared
the other question that comes up is
around eligibility in vhsl sponsored
athletics and activities
students in a four by four schedule must
take a minimum of three classes
each term and pass those three classes
to be eligible
to participate in school sponsored
athletics and activities
so all of these things are certainly
changes to what our students and parents
and teachers are accustomed to
is going to require some patience and
flexibility as we work through those
adjustments and we're confident that if
we work together and we
look at our best practices and solutions
that will will achieve
great results on sol assessments and
we'll do just as well in our advanced
placement exams
as we look at how are we going to be
successful as we start the school year
in a four by four schedule
dr schubridge talked about this a little
bit we have to be ready in the first day
of school on september 8th
she shared the component of chromebooks
need to be charged they need to be ready
we need our students to locate the
course information folder
in each schoology course for the video
conferencing link whether it's google
meet or zoom that a teacher is going to
use
we want our students to find the best
possible workspace they have in their
house to
to support being engaged in the learning
we need them to be on time to each class
and also we we would like all of you to
continue to review the communication
from your teachers in schools
that is going to come out during the
upcoming week
i've seen many of those communications
for many of our schools they're
they're very detailed and very
structured to the needs for students to
be successful in the first day
so i hope that you continue to review
those you reference back to those you
sit down with your
your student and and go over those
expectations and
that are being offered up not only by
the school but the school division
as we start the school year it's going
to be extremely important that we engage
with our peers and our teachers that we
begin to connect
not only as students to the teachers but
just connect as a community
and begin to develop those relationships
to me this is the most important
component of the initial week of school
if we have students that are logging in
and meeting with our teachers and
engaging with their peers we're going to
have students that are going to succeed
in the long run and it's really
important that we stress this that they
they arrive on time they're
excited about interacting with their
fellow classmates and beginning the
relationship building
with their teachers dr shoebridge
talked about this as well organization
is going to be of the utmost importance
students are going to need to utilize a
calendar to identify key timelines and
dates
dr shoebridge mentioned the schoology
calendar i know some schools have
have created their own planners for
students to use
but it's going to be extremely important
for students to utilize a calendar to
identify key timelines as dates
and dates i go back to the end of the
first marking period
is october 7th and we need students on
september 8th
organized and ready to go need to use
utilize student view and parent view to
monitor
grades and assignments as dr schubridge
talked about those notifications
and i really want to stress that
students are encouraged to participate
in the advisory sessions
it's a great opportunity to interact
with our school counselors
it's a great opportunity for them to
engage in social emotional learning
to handles to get some of the
conversations off of just their
coursework
and to to have an opportunity to discuss
many of the issues that are
are affecting them today and it's going
to be important that we provide them
that grace and opportunity
to engage in those sessions and so when
you see those advisory sessions
advertised by your schools
with the times that those are going to
occur in those topics
highly encouraged for students and
parents to
to participate or have their children
participate in those advisory sessions
one of the things that is going to be in
my opinion most
essential is how are we consistently
communicating
we want to make sure that your contact
information and synergy is accurate
it provides the opportunity for teachers
to send out
very detailed emails to people that are
in need of receiving those emails
it's important that we understand that
the communication concerns and questions
go to the teacher and the school
counselor and school administration
it's also important that you understand
that the teachers are balancing several
different
students as well and that you're mindful
of
the time in which they do reply to that
communication
on the secondary level we advocate for
students to be become their biggest
advocates that they initiate the
communication
i'm extremely confident that teachers
will have communication protocols
in place for students it'll be through
schoology updates alerts emails in a
variety of other
fashions it's important that students
own their learning
and own their communication and advocacy
with teachers
and that to parents support them through
that process it's a huge huge component
of the secondary level and i know
there's some anxiety for our rising
sixth graders
and rising ninth graders on their
ability to navigate that it's important
that we support them through that
process
dr schubridge showed some videos
previously to take full advantage of the
supports available
i talked about a couple of tutoring
office hours and school counselors
as parents their support videos that'll
be present on our
vbcpsupport.com website which i've also
listed on this slide
and one that i did i don't want to have
to go unnoticed and i would put this on
a sticky note on every one of your
children's chromebooks
i'd have it on the refrigerator that
there's a technology support hotline
that anybody can call
to get technology support two six three
one one one one is the number
they just adjusted their hours starting
today
from monday through thursday 7 30 a.m to
6 30 p.m
and friday 7 30 a.m to 4 30 p.m
so as a parent that is at work if your
child is at home and they have some
issues with technology
they can call this number and receive
the necessary supports that can
hopefully get them back online and
engage in their instruction
in a very timely manner so again i want
to highlight that number highlight the
fact to put that on a sticky note
and ensure that just your students are
understanding that they can call those
not only prior to school but also at
times after school hours
i use this last slide before i turn it
back over to dr alexander to really look
at our vbcps core values and
and those core values are on our website
anytime
you log in you see these and it's been
interesting to
at times continually review back to
these core values and really
look at how much our value system has
been put to the test
since march the 13th and as we look at
the need to put students first and
how do we seek growth and everybody
knows we've had to be very open to
change and and how challenging that can
be in the times when
we are in today and that we want to do
great work together in value differences
the 4x4 schedule as we've set it up has
put students first it's minimizing their
course load
it's allowing them to focus on a set
level of assignments
of three to four classes it's creating
them in a scenario when we return back
to face-to-face if they're
we're minimizing the level of contact
and number of students they have in the
class
but what i will share with you is it's
been it's extremely challenging for our
teachers to prepare for as they start
the school year
and when i look at that bulleted item of
do great work together
i think it's important for the stu the
parents and students on the call to
recognize the level of support that our
teachers need from them
the level of understanding that our
teachers need from our entire community
in terms of what we're asking them to do
and what we're asking them to prepare
for
most teachers will tell you and as a
former teacher and the current educator
our favorite days are the first day of
school
when we get to see them come off the bus
we get to form new relationships with a
brand new group of students
and for me as a high school principal my
favorite day was graduation
to watch those same students exit across
the stage
with the same smile on their face the
only difference was we knew them a lot
better
at that time our teachers are not
getting that opportunity to have that
first day that they're accustomed to
they're going to work very hard to
develop those relationships and they're
going to need
all of our support to ensure that that
occurs please have your students show up
on the first day
logged in ready to go i ask for our
parents to
show extreme patience flexibility and
grace towards our teachers
who are walking into uncharted waters
and they're doing it
at a pace that's never been seen before
i'm very proud of their efforts
and i'm thankful that we have such a
strong staff and i just ask all of you
to support them as they go through these
upcoming weeks
dr alexander i can turn it over to you i
appreciate the time i don't know if you
have
some questions for me as well uh
yes thank you mr delaney i think that
was uh
wonderful and uh and the last part you
said is so
so true so thank you for saying that and
expressing that
um to all our viewers um and our
teachers and parents and families
i just really one question i had for you
um
uh with all the information and um that
you've given
if i'm a student or a parent on day one
or today
and i got my schedule and i'm still a
little confused uh who should i contact
to try to help me
walk me through that information yeah as
i stated in the presentation
schools are sending out communications
if they have not already done so are in
the process of doing that to really walk
through uh how to interpret that
schedule
and how to deal with what are any
perceived errors on that i highly
recommend that parents wait for that
notification and review that
documentation before
the next step would then be to contact
their school counselor
or to contact their schools the reason i
say to wait on that communications in
schools right now are busily
planning for the opening of the school
year or finalizing some things
internally
so they may not be able to respond as
quickly as a parent needs and
and they may be able to get that
information and get that question
answered by reviewing the communications
that have come from the school so that
would be my first
uh line of thinking for them because
again as a former high school principal
within that communication i always
detailed
for my families what the net the steps
were if they were confused on
anything in that schedule or something
that did not look right
for example i know from my own situation
i have two students in high school i
received a communication on friday from
their school
about their schedules and what were the
steps to take place if there were any
concerns
awesome thank you um so
we're going to continue to move on mr
delaney uh thank you so much for that
information on the 4x4
um it was so it was very thorough um i
really appreciate the diagram i think it
added
uh some visuals that are really helpful
um so parents can actually see the
differences um between the two one
the prior schedule and current but also
what term
you know what the semesters uh entail
and also the term so thank you so much
for that appreciate it
i want you to stay with us though mr
delaney don't go anywhere
so we're going to get to our our final
part um
and really student questions um so
this past week we sent out a submission
form to collect some questions from
students
we got a few questions back by students
and we we compiled them and
got a few questions back and now we're
going to have
dr schubridge and mr delaney answer a
couple of these questions
most of them are going to be for dr
shoebridge because they really center
around technology
because you know that's everybody's
concern is what happens if
uh so dr schubrich thank you for joining
us again
and i'm gonna jump to some of the
questions
the the first question which i think is
a great question came from a
a fourth grader who was a third grader
um
and they wanted to know am i going to
have a new meeting id
or personal link name in zoom because i
forgot mine
and after having a a person who has
consistently forget
forgets their passwords i totally
appreciate this question so dr
shoebridge
certainly so when we were talking about
your schoology access
and the welcome message or the course
information message
folder in your schoology course your
teacher is going to be creating the new
link for you and you will be set up in
that
so students don't have to remember what
they had last year what they were last
year
we've also talked with teachers about
the very first time students log in
um to help students practice changing
their name if for example
uh mr delaney went by something other
than matt if he went by his middle name
jim maybe he wanted to put jim on the
where your name appears instead of it
saying matalini
we want teachers to have that
opportunity to show students that so
kids do not need to remember what they
used last year to log in
those links won't be the same anyway so
you get to start fresh
when you start on september 8th awesome
thank you
that's comforting um i'm sure um
that little one was like thank goodness
yes
i have to go back through all the
notebooks and figure out what my
password was all the post-it notes
um the next question is again dr
schubert's for you
as well in fact i'm gonna say most of
these are for you
um what if i do not have a chromebook
what do i do so that's a great question
so
we have a lot of students who are new to
virginia beach city public schools
whether they're a kindergartner
or you've transferred in from some other
place you just need to contact your
school
contact your home school let them know
that you're a new student and you need a
chromebook
they'll they'll work it out with their
technology support technician and get
one assigned to you
if you are a student in virginia beach
city public schools and last year maybe
you did not go home with a chromebook in
march
you can still let your school know and
say hey in march i didn't get a device
to take home
please can you support me in getting one
secured for me
we have a system where we can track
where
if a student was given a device to make
sure they've turned that back in to then
reassign them a new device
in some of our title one schools the
devices all had to be turned in
and so students moving into a new
building are going to request a
computer and those schools are ready for
those requests but your best place to
start is at your home school and let
them know that you need a device
awesome um the next question uh we
receive is kind of like the first
question and regarding resetting a
password so
students are in but now you know they
forgot their password as the year
continues
uh how do they go about resetting their
password as well
so on that web um the vbcps support
website
um there are some directions for how you
can reset your password yourself
and so students and staff can reset
their passwords it's two easy steps
um there's a there's a way you can set
up an account
um called self service password reset
um and you have to set it up prior to
your password expiring
because that's the catch um and then you
can reset your password
if by chance your password has already
expired you can contact the school your
home school first let them know that you
need
support in changing their password there
are many staff members in your home
school who can help you with the
password reset
um and if you're still struggling if
there's something else maybe there's a
different technical issue that's
associated with your password reset
you can call the help line that mr
delaney referenced in his presentation
the 263
one one one one but we are always
encouraging people to start with their
home school first
for any of their technology questions or
their support questions because quite
often the answer can come from the
school support
and then the technology is sort of the
bigger picture things that the schools
can't handle
so thank you again dr schubert certainly
happy to be here
um two more questions one more question
for you and then
i am going to have one for mr delaney i
promise okay
um are students allowed to work on their
compute their own computers
maybe they have a larger screen they're
more comfortable
instead of their chromebooks when
working at home
so that's a great question um and i know
that
uh you know like at my house um i have a
double monitor so it makes it nice for
me when i'm doing work to be able to
have the dual screen
um and so my my answer is going to be a
little around about but i'm going to say
this
we recognize that your device at home
may provide the larger screen
it might be easier to access resources
maybe it's faster than the chromebook
you figured out all summer how to save
things to different locations
what we're going to say though is this
with several of our new applications
like class link
securely classroom which is a way for a
teacher to be in direct
communication with the student while um
in the middle of instruction
the school issued uh school issued
chromebook is going to be essential
okay so that's for live instruction so
right now we're in live instruction
during this time we would really like
students to be on their school issued
device
um it allows those applications to work
the classic launch pad
will be available with all of the
resources accessible for the student
when a student chooses to do their
on-demand or they're doing work that's
outside of the
live time with the teacher if the
student wants to use their home device
or whatever they have um at their
parents house um
we encourage you to use whatever you're
most most comfortable with
we will suggest that you create a
bookmark for the classlink launchpad
so that you can get to your resources
more easily and you're not having to
hunt and peck on your computer for those
pieces so
um we prefer it when it's live
instruction for the applications that we
have in our school division to work on
the chromebook
and then for times that you're doing
on-demand work or work independently
you can use your home device
thank you dr schubert and the the last
question i have for both you but i'm
going to
throw it to mr delaney first so you can
take take a drink of water dr schubridge
rest your vocals um it's really just
advice as both of you are educators and
have worked extremely hard this summer
to put in
uh uh support systems for parents and
teachers and staff and uh
etc um what what advice would you give
the students and parents to just
starting this new school year mr delaney
i'm gonna throw that to you first
yeah i think uh dr alexander when things
get challenging it's sometimes best to
just go to what
is simple to understand and and what
works and
you know my hope is that we get all of
our kids logged in on september the 8th
and they're looking at their teacher and
their teachers looking at them and
they're smiling at one another and
starting to build
that relationship and if we're able to
do that
the teacher's talent level will take
over from there
and the teacher will make the decisions
in the best interest that student and
teaching and learning will occur
no doubt my mind so it just becomes once
there's a lot of noise of stuff out
there right
what is this going to be there's
thousands of questions well to me the
one answer to any question education is
if you form a relationship with a
student and a teacher
everything else goes to the wayside and
and that student reaches their potential
and so to me it's it
all of these questions all these
concerns the reality is
let's get them in front of their teacher
let's let them form a relationship
and let's start taking care of one
another and then i think we'll we'll be
very proud in the end of that if we let
all the other
noise kind of complicated it's going to
hold us down a little bit let's log in
on the eighth
let's hope zoom and google meet are
working let's look at each other let's
smile
and say pleasure to meet you let's work
together and that
that sounds probably pretty corny but to
me that's as simplistic as it gets just
let's start seeing each other and start
working together
thank you mr delaney dr shoebridge
i was going to say can you please repeat
the question
kidding um you know a lot of the things
that mr delaney
just shared i echo so i had been an
elementary school principal and
um you know on the first day of school
what mattered to me the most was that
our kids got to school safely
that we fed them and they got home and
in some ways we don't have that same
opportunity to make sure they get to a
safely or that we feed them or that we
get them home
but we can just make sure they can log
on we can have a friendly face we can
have a conversation we can make sure
they know where they're going the next
day
um i know there's a pressure for us to
succeed and do well
but i think every day we are going to
get better i i shared with somebody
today i just want us to start i just
want us to hit the ground and start
moving because i think some of the um
hold up is just fear
is just this is unknown and different
for me and
uh once we get into it kids fall into
their rhythm
kids relax parents will take a deep
breath they will relax
i think that relationship piece is
critical communicate
communicate communicate talk to the
teacher if you have
questions make sure you know how to
reach the teacher or the school office
make sure that you are
asking questions and you're following up
don't let it become october 6
and you suddenly realize your child
hasn't done any work or hasn't turned in
any assignments
so just being a part of that and
let us just get started let us get
started and get the work flowing
i think it's going to be a fantastic
there are some amazing teachers out
there
already doing some great stuff to get
ready we're just going to check in
september 8th log on say hi build
relationships and it'll go from there
thank you um thank you both uh for just
taking the time today to
be part of this and inform our community
and our students and parents on
you know the schoology uh tutorial as
well as the four by four
and um just cap it off on what both
you're saying i think as well
just having a little bit of patience i
think this time is just all about
being patient and and trusting in your
teachers um because they know what
they're doing
and they do a great job every day um and
so
i'm with you both and this is going to
be a fantastic year we're going to look
back on this and be like what are we
worried about this is this is nothing
so i'm excited for this school year and
and thank you both again for because i
know
a lot of people don't know but i know
how hard both of you work and your teams
have worked to really get us to this
point so thank you
you're welcome thank you for this
opportunity tonight
absolutely so that was our final
question and again thank you to mr
delaney and dr shrewbridge for joining
us today
for this parent connection series i want
to thank the students who submitted
questions and the
bbcps community as well obviously as our
panelists
we hope this works out answered many of
your questions and provide a little bit
more
clarity to for you as you start the
beginning of the school year
and always thank you for watching as
well remember that to view
our faqs on bbschools.com
and this parent connection will be
recorded
so please also review this connect
review this uh
this session on vbschools.com as well
just another reminder that join us on
thursday for the last and
final of the five part series bb safe
together hosted by our superintendent dr
spence
answering uh final questions from
parents students
staff and community members about the
reopening of schools
thank you so much everyone for joining
us and have a great night
so
you
