Young School
75 Tasker Street
Saco, Maine 04072
Telephone (207) 284-7053
Fax: (207) 282-1510
Jeff Rodman Laurie Turmel
Principal Administrative Assistant
August 19, 2020
Dear Parents and Guardians,
I hope this letter finds you well. The educators and staff at Young, as well as everyone throughout the district, continue to work around the clock to prepare for a safe and healthy return to school in September. Today we are writing to you with additional information on our Hybrid model and some important date reminders as we head into September. Before we go into that additional information, I want to let you know that the interview committee that consisted of parents, teachers, district staff, and school board members chose Mr. Jeff Rodman as the new Interim Principal for Young School for the 2020-2021 school year. We are excited to welcome him into the Young School family and the Saco Public Schools. Mr. Rodman will bring over 25 years of principal experience and has the philosophy and pedagogy that matches Young Schools vision, mission, and values. Mr. Rodman will be approved by the School Board this evening and will start tomorrow. His email is jrodman@sacoschools.org.
As you know, we are currently preparing for a Hybrid learning model. Hybrid learning means that students learn part of the time in-person in school buildings, and continue their learning remotely, from home, on the remaining weekdays. Any family can also choose all-remote learning this fall, for any reason. If you begin in Hybrid learning, you can decide later to transition to all-remote or vice versa. As you consider which learning model is best for your child, I want to restate our guiding principles that apply to every student’s education: All students will engage in continuous learning daily, and teachers will continue to deliver high-quality instruction that is culturally responsive, rigorous and developmentally appropriate for all students, in all learning settings. Thank you for reviewing our school opening plan here.
Types of Teaching and Learning
Hybrid or Remote Learning
Whether your child is participating in Hybrid learning or learning 100 percent remotely, they will receive instruction by 1) interacting live with their teachers and 2) by independently completing assignments and projects throughout the school day and week. Remote learning will be aligned and paced with the District’s adopted curriculum plan. Students engaging in remote learning will be learning the same standards, content, and assessments as students attending the in-person school hybrid cohorts. Students placed in grade-level remote learning cohorts will be assigned their own remote learning teachers.
Homeschooling
Parents who choose to homeschool their child choose to take the responsibility for providing home instruction, including choosing the curriculum, determining academic needs, and providing or facilitating the instruction. Funding is provided exclusively by the parent. Parents must file a Notice of Intent with the Maine Department of Education and the Superintendent of the school district in which they live, and students are not enrolled in the public school. If the student has an IEP, it becomes inactive and no FAPE is provided by the school district. For more information parents should access the Maine Department of Education website at: https://www.maine.gov/doe/schools/schoolops/homeinstruction
Teachers
Students engaged in remote learning will, for the most part, be taught by teachers from their school community by our distance learning team. While there may be limited exceptions on a school-by-school basis, parents can expect their children to be receiving remote learning instruction from Young staff.
Posting Schedules
Teachers will post daily morning messages. Posted agendas and schedules will be provided for all students by the classroom teacher—those fully remote as well as those participating in Hybrid learning.
Community Building
All students will have routines that build community, center the day, and set them up for success. This will provide all students with community- and relationship-building experiences that are an integral part of a typical school community. For example, this may consist of a daily morning meeting where the teacher engages students in activities related to social-emotional wellness and community-building, or a daily closing activity where the teacher recaps the learning for the day, and gets students prepared for the following day. Schools and teachers will share more about this as we approach the first day of school.
Social-Emotional Support
We know that current circumstances in the pandemic have been very difficult for you and your children. Students have been isolated from their teachers, classmates, and school communities. For this reason, we will allow time for teachers, school-based staff, and students to readjust to being in school buildings and to adapt to changes. In addition, we will integrate social-emotional activities into academic subjects to the greatest extent possible throughout the day. We will also prioritize mental health support throughout the school year.
We are approaching reopening by centering health and safety and basing our procedures on the expertise of the CDC.
We have collectively learned a lot since March—both about the virus, and about our ability to react and respond to it in real time. That’s why we won’t settle for anything but the strictest and most rigorous processes for coming back to school.
Let us continue to offer each other support and care as we navigate this together. Thank you for being a part of the Young School family.
Take care,
Young School CCR Team & Superintendent DePatsy
Important dates/times:
8/26 & 27 Assessment days for 1st & 2nd
8/26, 27, 31 Kindergarten Screening
9/8 First day of school for Cohort A for all students in that cohort
9/10 First day of school for Cohort B for all students in that cohort
7:30 Drop off starts - children go directly to their classrooms
8:00 Official start of school
1:00 Bus dismissal starts
1:45 Car pick up starts
There will be staff in the front of the school to direct your child where to go on the date of their assessment, as well as to escort your child into the building and to their assigned class.
Thank you for your patience and kindness.