Dear CPS Families,
Earlier this month, we announced that all Chicago Public Schools (CPS) students will begin the coming school year learning at home. Throughout our response to COVID-19, our top priority has been, and will continue to be, keeping our students and school communities safe. Today, we are sharing our Final Reopening Framework for the start of the 2020–21 school year. This framework gives CPS the flexibility to begin the school year learning at home and transition to hybrid learning once our public health experts determine it is safe to do so.
Mirroring a Normal School Day at Home When students start school on September 8, their day-to-day experience will look very different than it did during remote learning last spring. We are using the insight we gained last year to provide our educators with new resources, tools, and expectations to ensure students continue to receive a high-quality education.
Families should expect an experience that mirrors what students would normally experience at school. Teachers will take attendance daily, use Google Suite tools to post work and host live instruction, and be available during school hours to provide students with feedback, support, and host parent conferences as needed. This will help teachers better understand individual student learning and provide support in a timely manner.
Students in kindergarten through grade 12 will engage in live, real-time instruction with their teachers for at least three hours per day, with high school students participating in live instruction for 80 percent of the school day. The remainder of the school day will be made up of independent learning and small group activities with other students through Google Education Suite. These changes will help provide critical structure in an age-appropriate manner and keep children engaged for the entirety of each school day. Expect to receive details of your child’s schedule in the coming weeks.
Implementing Individualized Education Plans (IEPs) and 504 Plans CPS will continue to ensure that our diverse learners make progress on their IEP goals and the general education curriculum. IEP teams will determine how to meet the individual needs of students with disabilities from home in a safe, supportive manner. Educators and related service providers will provide live, real-time instruction as well as individual check-ins and independent learning activities.
Providing Real-time Instruction for English Learners Bilingual education teachers will continue collaborating with classroom teachers to deliver instruction that meets the language needs of our English learners (ELs). In order to support students’ language development, ELs will receive live, real-time instruction and independent learning activities this fall.
Educating the Whole Child We know children may experience a combination of stress, fear, and anxiety as the school year approaches, and easing these feelings and building supportive learning environments will be critical to their success this coming school year. This year, we will offer additional mental health interventions and supports, introduce grief curriculum, expand small group trauma interventions, and provide virtual classroom-based activities for managing stress and anxiety. We will continue to be intentional about prioritizing social-emotional learning and sharing mental health resources with students and families throughout the year. Parents can contact their school social worker or counselor to request more information about these services or resources.
Expanding Equitable Access to Technology and High-Speed Internet To ensure every CPS student will have a high-quality digital experience learning at home this fall, CPS will provide 36,000 computing devices to children who still need one––in addition to the 128,000 devices distributed last spring. And through Chicago Connected, more than 100,000 families from limited-income backgrounds will be able to get high-speed internet at no cost. Families can check their eligibility and access their activation code by simply entering their child’s student ID number and birthdate into our eligibility tool at Chicago Connected. You can find your child’s student ID on their report or progress report. If you need assistance, please call your child’s school.
In the coming days, we will be releasing additional resources for parents and students that will help our families prepare for learning at home during this first quarter. We will also begin introducing new virtual training sessions through our Parent Universities to help our families transition to online learning in addition to the courses available on the Office of Family and Community Engagement’s Youtube channel.
We thank you for your continued patience and engagement and look forward to providing your children with the high-quality education they deserve while keeping everyone healthy and safe.
Sincerely,
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Dear CPS Families,
Our top priority in planning for the fall has been to provide a high-quality education for every child while keeping all our school communities healthy and safe. Today, after carefully considering advice from public health experts and feedback from many of you, Chicago Public Schools (CPS) will begin the year learning at home through the end of the first quarter.
Prior to the beginning of the second quarter, we will assess the state of COVID-19 and the safety of switching to a hybrid learning model similar to what we proposed in our preliminary reopening framework.
Listening to public health officials and affording families time to plan As we have committed to you and our families, our decision to reopen schools would prioritize the health and wellness of our school communities and be driven by science and the guidance of our public health officials. As educators and dedicated education professionals, we all want students to be in school, but at this time, the Chicago Department of Public Health (CDPH) believes that current COVID-19 transmission trends would not allow us to reopen schools in a safe and responsible manner given the sheer number of people we serve every day. And rather than waiting until the end of August to make a decision on reopening schools, we wanted to afford our parents and families ample time to plan for the fall.
Listening to our CPS families and educators Through virtual community meetings and a myriad of surveys, over 87,000 CPS students, families, and staff members provided feedback on returning to school in the fall. While many families expressed a desire to begin the year in a hybrid model, a large number of families did not feel comfortable sending their children back to school—approximately one in five African-American and Latinx families planned to send their children back to school in person this fall. Our decision to begin the school year remotely is a reflection of the feedback we received in response to our preliminary framework.
Lessons learned in the spring and how we’re planning to improve remote learning for students Students will be learning at home this fall, but we’re committed to providing students with an engaging learning experience that is significantly different from what students and families experienced last year. Each day, students will be engaged for the entirety of a typical school day through a combination of live real-time instruction with classmates and teachers, small group activities, and independent learning. Established daily expectations, including classroom attendance and graded assignments, will also help students develop routines. A more detailed set of expectations for remote learning will be shared with families on Friday.
Expanding equitable access to technology and the internet Unlike last school year when the district utilized digital and non-digital learning pathways to allow schools flexibility to respond to the emergency, teachers will provide digital instruction every day this school year.
We know students need consistent access to devices and high-speed internet to be successful in digital learning, and we are committed to providing devices for all students. Last school year, we distributed more than 128,000 computing devices to students, and we will provide an additional 36,000 devices to children who still need them prior to the start of school. We will continue to monitor our students’ needs and take all necessary steps to ensure students have access to devices.
Over the summer, we also began offering free, high-speed internet access to approximately 100,000 CPS students from limited-income backgrounds through our Chicago Connected initiative. Families eligible for this program have been contacted individually, and 35 Community-Based Organizations (CBOs) have been recruited to get students connected prior to the start of the school year.
Final reopening framework coming this Friday Families should expect to receive our final reopening framework with detailed remote learning expectations this Friday. Later in the month, teachers and principals will receive specialized training and guidance on expectations for remote learning, and we will follow our remote learning plan through the end of the first quarter. Later this fall, CPS will consult with CDPH on the possibility of adopting a hybrid learning model for the second academic quarter, which will begin Monday, November 9.
We remain committed to helping every student reach their full potential, even under these unprecedented circumstances, and we are confident that with your support, CPS will remain a school district on the rise. Thank you for helping make our plans for the 2020-21 school year as strong as possible.
Sincerely,
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