Monday Nov 2 update – Progress Reports and Reorganziation

Hello,

This email is to give you some updates in relation to the Remote learning program. A reminder of some of the information shared last week with:

Families leaving remote learning https://www.hwdsb.on.ca/remotelearning/2020/10/29/goodbye-to-students-returning-to-in-class/

Families staying in remote learning https://www.hwdsb.on.ca/remotelearning/2020/10/29/students-remaining-in-remote-learning/

Families that are beginning remote learning https://www.hwdsb.on.ca/remotelearning/2020/10/29/welcome-new-students/

Progress Reports

All Progress Reports have been completed however there was a technical issue with the School Messenger distribution system. Unfortunately this issue is still not resolved. The HWDSB IT department has initiated a work order with the company and an email will be sent to parents when the issue is fixed.

Reorganization

The reorganization required this week has been difficult. A reorganization of this size has never been required before. While the need to reorganize on this scale will lead to required changes, efforts have been made to minimize this where possible.

The staffing process has been completed for the vast majority of classes, however a small number of classes will still require a teacher to be placed. It is expected that this will be complete by the end of the week. A breakdown of the timelines this week is as follows:

Monday – Last day of current classes. Classes with a teacher transitioning to a new class may have asynchronous work provided instead of live classes.

Tuesday – Remote class communication day. New teachers will reach out and connect with families this day. There will not be regular live classes this day. Asynchronous work may be assigned in many classes. The focus is on teachers making contact with families.

Wednesday – First day of new classes with regular instruction.

One benefit of reorganization is that there should be a greater number of supply teachers available across the school board. Efforts will now be made to find a supply teacher for a class on the first day of a teacher absence, previously a supply teacher was only provided on the second day of absence. Just like in physical schools, there are days when supply teacher jobs go unfilled and a class may not be covered; for a remote class, this means that students should continue to work on previous work assigned and there would be no live class.

MS Teams and the HUB

Staff from the HWDSB IT department completed work over the weekend and remote program office staff have been working hard to make sure that all needed account settings have been updated. However, with a change of this size some technical problems may be encountered. Communication about know technical problems will be posted to the Remote Learning website and also through School Messenger emails.

The remote learning program is now educating over 9000 students and has over 350 teaching staff. There has been no precedent for providing this type of learning on this scale before in the province; your patience is appreciated.

Thank you,

Remote Learning Program Staff