Friday Flyer for June 5, 2020

Friday Flyer June 5, 2020 (emailed on Saturday 6/6/20)

Dear MMCA Families,

With today being the last day of the 2019-2020 School Year, I wanted to have some semblance of ‘normalcy’ and end the year with a ‘Friday Flyer.’ I want to congratulate all of our students, families and staff for getting through this incredibly unique “Distance Learning” 3rd Trimester we just completed. I know at times it was stressful and frustrating - as a staff we felt it too. But I also know that collectively, we made the best out of bad circumstances that were not anybody’s fault, and I am grateful for the efforts that everybody put into this.

Obviously, the question I am being asked the most right now is “what is the plan for the next school year?” Currently, our plan is to return to as ‘normal’ of school as we are allowed by the County Health Doctor and the County Superintendent of Schools. Next week, it is expected that both the Calif. Dept. of Education and the Calif. Dept. of Health will be publishing their first set of ‘how to reopen schools’ guidelines and suggestions. I believe these guidelines will be getting revised several times throughout the summer. Having seen rough drafts for both, there’s some….interesting….suggestions within them. We will continue to work with our County Health Doctor and County Superintendent of Schools through the summer, and ultimately whatever we do will be done with their approval. If I were to give you my best guess now regarding COVID-19 mitigation measures we would take this fall, my current top 5 would include:

Adding advanced air purification systems to each of our HVAC units that will eliminate 99%+ of all airborne viruses, bacteria, molds and dust within our rooms. We will also set each room’s HVAC system to be slightly ‘negative’ pressure, essentially the same settings as you’d find in a hospital.
Having hand sanitizer products available all over campus, and making hand cleaning a continuous and regular process; related, teaching the kids to wash their hands for 20 seconds at a time.
Increased custodial cleaning to several times per day of all campus-wide common surfaced touched areas (examples include external door handles, bathrooms, light switches, countertops, tables, etc.)
Temperature checking every student before they enter the classroom, and then temperature checking any student who appears sick to staff during the school day; and
Some strategic deployments of plexiglass within our office and some classrooms.

About a week ago, I sent a survey to our families regarding potential school options this fall. These choices were mainly connected to possible physical distancing requirements at school. Currently, it’s anticipated that physical distancing will be a suggestion (not mandatory), and that if schools implement other mitigation measures (see 1-5 above), it won’t become mandatory. That said, if the County Health Doctor mandates “6 feet of physical distancing between students” at some point this summer, public schools within the county will be forced to choose one of the “hybrid” or “distance” learning options that were included in the survey. We had 160 respondents for the survey - thank you! Survey results are available at the end of this Flyer - please take a moment and read the brief articles in between!

I anticipate sending our first Summer Flyer in a few weeks. Have a great summer everyone!

Brent

Summer Office Hours Our Summer Office Hours will be Tuesdays and Thursdays, 11:30a to 3:30p. Report Cards Heads up: We will be mailing report cards towards the end of next week. For the “Distance Learning” 3rd Trimester, we have modified in some areas what we are putting on the report card. I’ll be including a brief letter explaining the changes and the reasons why with the report cards. Yearbooks for Sale, Yearbook Pickups Since our yearbook publisher had to delay publication due to COVID-19, we do have a FEW yearbooks available for sale beyond the pre-ordered books. If you would like a yearbook (and you didn’t already pre-order one), please contact cbrown@mmcharter.org. They will be reserved on a first come, first served basis. Per the publisher, we anticipate that yearbooks will be available for pickup after 6/24/20. As soon as we have them, we will let everyone know that they’re available for pickup during our Summer Office hours. Student Laptop Returns, other returns If you checked out one of our student laptops, please return it to the Office during our Summer Office Hours. Same for ukuleles, library books, classroom books and materials, girls’ VB uniforms and boys’ BB uniforms. 8th Grade Graduation Ceremonies While we didn’t have our traditional ceremony, our 7/8th teaching team as well as other members of our instructional staff were able to visit each of our graduates’ houses for mini individual ceremonies. We also created a virtual graduation presentation celebrating each of our graduates, which I’m making available to our entire school community here: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/133tlir1lkbiZdSs3gxWZQecNWadEpseV0vXRCVFXJp0/edit?usp=gmail&ts=5ed839bb Summertime Gardening Are you bored and looking for something to do this summer? The garden could use your help! We will not have any formal workdays, but if you are looking for something to do, please consider enjoying the sunshine and helping us complete some jobs! There will be a list of what needs to be done on a clipboard inside the barn. You can come and go as you please; there are no set times or days! If you are interested in helping, contact Kristin Thomas (kthomas@mmcharter.org) with any questions and for the gate and barn codes. Thank you all in advance for your help! Survey Results: Question 1 (160 total respondents):