What if school closes temporarily while it is being disinfected? Will it be considered similar as a snow day, where classes are suspended and no teaching is expected?
What if half the student population and a quarter of the staff population turn up at school one day? Do you run hybrid virtual-physical classes where students connect virtually to physical classes, or schedule asynchronous plans?
What if it's a full closure? Are neighbourhood and infrastructures affected? What are the legal and Ministry requirements for teaching load?
One of the more important things I want teachers to keep in mind is that in the Junior School, any plan must address the importance of pastoral and community care for our students. Academics is only maybe half of the thought process. Checking in virtually with our Junior students gives them an opportunity to see routine, their teacher and friends in something outside their home.
For technology we are relying on tools that we currently use as much as possible. One of the recurring themes I'm hearing from international school and schools that have been experienced closures is that this is not the time to try new things. Also, it is difficult to maintain appropriate levels of work since we are all so inexperienced at running distance learning. Typically teachers will tend to overload students with work.
For us, we are relying on Seesaw for primary grades and Google Classroom as our main student communication and learning management systems. Email and our SIS will maintain communication links to parents and between faculty. The Junior School has not used virtual meeting software at all, but the ease and simplicity of Google Meets is an obvious choice. We also have a site license for Citrix Webex but I find it overly complication to just host a meeting. Mandatory passwords? Email signins? Ugh.
The Junior School plan is quite lengthy also because it includes tips on how to run a virtual meeting and connect users. These tips are as simple as how to mute participants, to showing the possibilities of screen sharing. I am hesitant to share it here right now because it's work in progress, and I don't know how much of it will turn into an "official" plan.
