Blue Heron families,

Our staff feels incredibly fortunate to have been able to spend the last 11 weeks with your children learning in person. As a community, we worked collaboratively to follow all mitigation strategies to keep our school safe. Thank you all for your efforts, they are appreciated. Last Thursday, Interim Superintendent, Kristopher Schuh announced that K-5 will pivot to remote learning beginning on November, 30th. Students will have their last day of in-person learning Thursday, November 19th. Please read all of this important information about the switch to remote learning.

Synchronous Learning

Blue Heron teachers will provide 3 hours of synchronous (live online instruction) learning Monday- Thursday each week. Synchronous learning provided by classroom teachers may include whole group instruction, small group instruction, and individual conferences. In addition to classroom instruction, students will engage in daily synchronous lessons for Art, Music, and PE. If your child works with a member of the Special Education team or ESL services, they will continue to receive their services in the synchronous format. Please look for your child's specific schedule with pertinent details from their classroom teachers.

Asynchronous Learning

Fridays will be reserved for asynchronous work. Teachers will provide assignments for students to engage in at their own pace. You will receive more specific information about this from your child's teacher.

AMP/Instrumental Music

Students will continue to have the opportunity for daily Art, Music, and PE instruction with their favorite Blue Heron AMP team! Students will login during their regularly scheduled AMP time and will engage in synchronous learning Monday-Thursday.5th graders who participate in Instrumental music each week will continue to meet with their band/orchestra teacher each Tuesday afternoon.

Grading/Attendance

Teachers will be grading during remote learning. Remember, grading is intended to measure performance/proficiency of the Colorado Academic Standards, and will be based on a body of evidence. If you have questions about your child's performance/proficiency as it relates to the standards, please reach out directly to your child's teacher.

Teachers will take attendance daily based on participation in both synchronous and asynchronous learning time. Please help your child develop the routine of logging in to all live sessions and remind them to complete all asynchronous work. If your child is going to be absent, please notify any teacher who works with your child and also feel free to call the attendance line.

Technology Support

If you are facing technology issues, please reach out to our Digital Teacher Librarian, JJ Eagleston. She will help to resolve any issues.

e-mail: JJ.Eagleston@Jeffco.k12.co.us

or you can reach out to the Jeffco IT Support for parents at (303)982-3438

Best Practices for Remote Learning

The Blue Heron staff created an overview of best practices for Blue Heron staff, students, and parents. If we all work collaboratively, we know that our students can continue to thrive in their learning!

I hope that you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving! This year, I am so thankful to be able to be a part of this phenomenal community. Blue Heron is truly one of a kind. Wishing you all a restful and relaxing week, Happy Thanksgiving!

In partnership,

Annie Larkin

Principal

Please see Ms. Iverson's newsletter here!

AMP Celebration! We won a grant from Westerra Credit Union. This will allow the AMP team to order headphones for our students to use when they do music with our remote teacher, Miss Diefendorf. When kids do music during PE and Art, not everyone has headphones for varies reasons. This becomes a very distracting learning environment due to the network latency, which means, you can hear the kids receiving the audio at different times. This grant will provide enough headphones that kids won't have to share headphones. I know our students will benefit greatly from this grant. I want to thank Westerra for supporting education, teachers and our students.

Thank you so much to the Blue Heron PTA for providing funding for over 30 Chromebooks! These brand new devices will be delivered in December/January and will allow for our students to have 1:1 technology. We are so appreciative!

Shout out to all of the families who have provided treats for our staff! Tuesday treat day is the highlight of the week!