Principal Update

Dear Parent(s)/Guardian(s),

I hope that you are having a great summer. Here at Brother Rice, we are preparing to open the new school year in the fall.  I want to assure you that we will do everything in our power to have all of our students on campus to start the year. We do not know what the future will hold, so we are preparing for four scenarios to open the school in the fall:

• Scenario One– Normal school begins as usual.
  • This is our hope for the fall, and we are prepared for a normal start to school with some minor adjustments.

•  Scenario Two– Normal start to school with physical changes. All students attend school, but classroom layout and other physical changes must occur to accommodate social distancing.
  • We have a committee called “Crusaders on Campus” to make suggestions for this scenario. President Mark Donahue will be chairing this committee.

•  Scenario Three– Partial eLearning: Groups of students participate in eLearning based on a set schedule.
  • Half of the students will attend school, and the other half of the school will view the class from home. Students will be divided by their houses.  We will have two houses attend school one day, and the other two houses will attend the next day.
  • Some possible safety protocols to follow: Students wear masks in hallways, sanitize every room every night, have students wipe down their desks before each use, and take a temperature reading at the doors when students enter each day.

• Scenario Four- Full eLearning: the school year begins with all students at home doing eLearning.
  • I believe that we did a great job with full eLearning this year, but I also believe that we can do better.  We feel the best way to handle full eLearning is to move to a block schedule. We will have periods 1, 3, 5, and 7 on one day and periods 2, 4, 6, and 8 the next day. Classes would be 75 minutes long; a sample schedule is provided below:

Odd Periods “Maroon” Day:

9:00 AM – Period 1

10:15 AM – Screen Break

10:30 AM – Period 3

11:45 AM- Screen Break

12:00 PM – period 5

1:15 PM – Screen Break

1:30 – Period 7

Even Periods “Orange” Day:

9:00 – Period 2

10:15 – Screen Break

10:30 – Period 4

11:45 – Screen Break

12:00 – Period 6

1:15 – Screen Break

1:30 – Period 8

• Students will have a 15-minute break between each class. Teachers will have a designated time to show their videos, do an Edpuzzle, give a test/quiz, answer questions, etc. This is class time designed to be spent with the students. Students will need to be in attendance for each class.

The last three months we were able to advance the curriculum and continue the educational process for our students. We feel that we did a great job; however, with some time to reflect, we feel that we can do even better. We have planned four in-services in July for our teachers to learn more about eLearning tools so we will be more prepared for the fall.

As we move forward through the summer, I will be in contact with you about any changes we may have to make.  The Graduation Ceremony will be held on July 12 – details to come. We will have student schedule pick-up days on July 21 and 22.  The school year will begin with orientation on Tuesday, August 18th, and the first day of school will be on Wednesday, August 19th.