Weekly email: March 4th

Good morning everyone,

I hope that you are well.

Please read the important information below relating the week ahead.

Don't forget that Friday March 12th is a Staff PD day and there will be no live, remote or in-person instruction. Students are encouraged to use this day to get off screens!

Do email with any questions or concerns.

Best

Chris

Health and Safety

We are grateful for the continued diligence of families, students, and staff to help the schools be safer places for learning during this Covid pandemic year. The combination of facilities upgrades, masking, sanitizing, and distancing have greatly reduced the risk of Covid transmission.

To continue to maintain our school as a safe place for learners and educators to be, we ask that you complete this daily document: HPS Symptom Checklist. This tool needs to be completed for each day of in-person learning and serves as a useful reminder for when to have children stay home and be tested per MA Department of Public Health protocols. We ask families to do the following:

1. If anyone from your household is experiencing new symptoms from the “checklist” please keep children home for remote learning, notify their teacher, and notify their building nurse to discuss followup.

2. If you learn that your children may have been exposed to someone who has tested positive, please keep them home and notify their building nurse.

3. If unsure, please keep your children home and notify their building nurse. Building nurses may be reached at jhobbie@hatfieldps.net or melliott@hatfieldps.net.

Return to in-person learning

The deadline to let the office know if you wanted to change from 100% remote to in-person learning has now passed. We will review this and reach out to families after the April break.

• Some students in Grade 7 returned to in-person learning on March 1st.
• Some of Grade 8 will return to in-person on Monday March 8th. Students and families have already been in contact with the office and will receive confirmation before the end of the week.
• Some of Grade 9 will return on March 15th. This is pending confirmation from the JLMC on Monday 8th March and will be confirmed next week
• Grade 10, 11, 12: We are working through responses from families and will announce tentative plans and dates for more in-person learning in these grades at next week's School Committee meeting.

Flex Blocks

Flex blocks started last week. These take place for some grades during the week and for all grades on Wednesday.

These are live opportunities for students to work 1:1 with content staff or work independently, whilst a teacher supervises/ is available for support, if needed. As well as academic support, these are opportunities for students to be in a live class with their entire grade level and to start to rebuild some of the SEL and community links impacted by the pandemic year.

The intention of these blocks is also to be flexible around student needs - academic and SEL - and I encourage all students to talk with their teachers when they attend about how best to use this time. Everyone has different needs and we will do our best to make this work for all students.

MCAS Testing

Please familiarize yourself with the following Testing information.

Students who are taking an MCAS exam should also complete this survey by March 9th.

• Q3: Deadline for redo/makeup work: March 26.
• Q3: grades close April 2
• Q4 starts: Monday 5th
• Report cards: April 9

• Friday March 12th: No school (virtual or in-person) Staff PD day

• April 2nd - Good Friday: School ends at 11:50am

• April vacation: 19-23rd