Los Gatos-Saratoga Union High School District

I am writing today to provide a brief update on our reopening planning in light of the ongoing Covid surge and our County’s move back into the state’s more restrictive Purple Tier. I also want to provide information about the implications of recent developments for the spring semester and for fall 2021.

Key Points:

• Our County’s move back to the Purple Tier means that we cannot legally reopen more broadly until our County has been in the Red Tier for at least two weeks.
• It is impossible to accurately predict when our county will return to the Red Tier but public health experts are advising that this may not occur until February or later.
• Given this, we will maintain the status quo schedule when school resumes for second semester in January.
• We’ve paused many of the cohorts that had previously been meeting in-person on our campuses and these cohorts will resume no earlier than January 19th, 2021 and the resumption of them will be dependent upon the community health conditions at that time.
• When we do resume in-person cohorts, we will continue to seek to expand the availability of additional cohorts.
• To date, we’ve had seven reported cases of Covid among our students and staff.
• CIF postponed the start of fall sport until later in the winter/spring and the state released guidance for the resumption of youth sports.
• The initiation of a nationwide vaccination program increases our optimism regarding the expansion of in-person activities this spring and creates cautious optimism that we can fully reopen in a “normal” way in August 2021.

Sincerely,

Mike Grove

Michael Grove, Ed.D., Superintendent

`````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````
COVID reporting:

Los Gatos High School:  Adam Minyard aminyard@lgsuhsd.org or 408-354-2730, x-310

Saratoga High School:  Brian Thompson bthompson@lgsuhsd.org or 408-867-3411, x-209

District Office:  Jane Marashian jmarashian@lgsuhsd.org or 408-354-5980 

                                    OR Brian Safine bsafine@lgsuhsd.org or 408 402-6309

  ````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````

Current Bell schedule (pdf linked here).  

Key Features & Expectations during Distance Learning:

• Attendance: Student attendance is mandatory in each class meeting including the Wednesday morning Advisory period. Attendance will be taken each period and parents will be notified if students miss classes just as they would in a normal school setting. We have yet to receive guidance from the state regarding whether parents will be required to “excuse” absences as they normally would - we will update you once we receive such guidance.
• Office Hours: All teachers will have regular Office Hours during which students can access support from teachers. This time is intended to support students in a manner similar to how a teacher would support students as they work independently during an in-person class or during a Tutorial time.
• Advisory: The advisory period will provide an opportunity for schoolwide activities and information-sharing similar to the Tutorial period in the regular school schedule.
• Instruction: Each class meeting will include teacher-led live instruction which will be paired with independent asynchronous learning activities. This does not mean that teachers will be talking or lecturing throughout the live instruction. Rather, teachers will lead students in a wide variety of activities during each class period (i.e., discussion, collaborative group work, simulations, formative & summative assessment, etc.).
• Grades: All students will receive A-F letter grades for all courses.
• Canvas: All teachers will utilize the Canvas learning management system to assign and manage student assignments and for communication with students. We have developed Canvas norms to provide more consistency from course to course.
• IEP’s: If your student has an Individualized Education Plan, prior to the start of the school year your case student’s case manager will provide you with a document outlining how we will implement your student’s IEP during distance learning.
• School Year Calendar: Our daily bell schedule will look different during this time but our school year calendar will remain the same. The calendar can be found via this link.
• First Days of School: The first two days of school (August 13 & 14) will focus on orienting our students to distance learning and other schoolwide activities to support student success and connection. Course-specific academic instruction will begin on Monday, August 17th.
• Athletics: The CIF’s Central Coast Section, of which we are a member, previously announced that all Fall sports would be postponed until the Winter season so there will be no sports during the Fall this year. Decisions regarding Fall and Winter sports will be made based upon the community health conditions and regulations at that time.
• Other Extra-curricular Activities: Current guidelines do not allow us to have students on-campus to participate in extra-curricular or club activities in-person. When possible, extra-curricular and club activities will continue online and when guidelines allow and it is safe to do, we will resume in-person activities.

Technology & Internet Access:

In order to appropriately access online instruction, each student will need access to a computer or tablet (not just a cell phone) and internet access. If your student does not have access to one or both of these elements, please contact our IT department at techsupport@lgsuhsd.org as soon as possible and we will assist you.

Pre-School Business:

Each of our schools will send a separate message to students and families regarding their plan to take care of the usual back to school business (check out of instructional materials, etc.) and their plans for a modified freshman orientation.

If we’ve learned one thing since March, it is that we need to develop plans, but we also need to anticipate that public health conditions and resulting guidelines will continue to change so some of our current plans can rapidly become obsolete or require adaptation. Once we have resumed classes, we will continue to seek feedback from students, staff, and families on the successes and areas for growth in our distance learning program. As always, our goal is continuous improvement. Our unexpected spring experiment with distance learning taught us much and we have incorporated these learnings into our program for this fall. Despite this, we still have much to learn and will seek to adapt and evolve as we gain more experience and feedback. Thank you for your ongoing support of our students and our schools.

Michael Grove, Ed.d. Superintendent