Weekly email: March 11th
Good morning everyone,
A lot has happened in the last few days and my thanks in advance for reading through this email carefully.
Please remember that there is no school for students tomorrow due to staff professional development.
Do reach out with questions or concerns.
Best
Chris
Return to School planning
DESE issued guidance on March 9th about returning to in-person learning. Please see this article, here. HPS admin will communicate out the next steps shortly in getting towards the following dates at SA:
April 26th - Grade 7-12 Schedule will change and the school day will run from 7:30-2pm (5 days a week)
Thank you for your patience as we ready plans for all students. More will be discussed at the School committee meeting tonight. See the town website for meeting details.
To help us with our planning, SA parents should complete this survey by March 17th.
MCAS delays in Grades 7&8
Fri 5th March, DESE announced that the dates for Grades 7 & 8 will be moved to a different window. This is in order to help schools have more breathing room as they get more students back in person. DESE have not yet confirmed when this will be or when they will tell us. It is likely to be between May-June
Please see our current MCAS Schedule. Any changes will be made as soon as we know more. This will also be communicated to respective grade levels.
Thank you for responding to our MCAS technology survey. We will be in touch with the next steps.
No school on Fri 12th March
Staff will be involved in PD all day and no classes (live, virtual or in-person) will take place. Students are encouraged to use this as a brain break or screen break day as much as possible.
Daylight savings:
Don't forget that the clocks change this weekend - Spring forward, Fall back!
DESE Annual reports for schools have been published
Prevention Needs Assessment Survey: March 31st
All parents will have received an email about the (PNAS) survey. Here is some brief information.
Every two years, the Strategic Prevention Initiative for Families and Youth (SPIFFY) administers the Prevention Needs Assessment (PNA) Survey to students in Hampshire County. The PNA survey measures substance abuse and other problem behaviors; the factors that place students at risk for engaging in problem behaviors; and the factors that make students less likely to engage in problem behaviors. This year, the survey will also be asking students about the impact of COVID on their lives and learning.
This year, all Grades at Smith Academy will be participating in the survey on March 31st and your child will be asked to take the survey during CREW from 8:30-9am. The purpose of the survey is to gather the information needed to plan important prevention and intervention programs to combat such problems as alcohol and other drug use and violence in our schools and communities. It will also help us judge the effectiveness of our current prevention and intervention efforts.
For more information, please click on this Link
Upcoming dates
Q3: Deadline for redo/makeup work: March 26.
Q3: grades close April 2 & Report cards issued: April 9th
Q4 starts: Monday 5th April
April 2nd - Good Friday: School ends at 11:50am
April Vacation: 19-23rd
April 26th - Grade 7-12 Schedule will change and the school day will run from 7:30-2pm