HOWELL – Superintendent of Schools Joseph Isola recently issued an update to members of the Howell School Community reviewing the status of the school district following its third week of remote learning.
Home instruction became necessary across the state and country due to the COVID-19 pandemic and Isola thanked the families, students and staff of the district for their cooperation and patience during this unusual period of time.
“Without your efforts, adaptability, and resilience, none of this would be possible. These days, now turned to weeks, are trying for the most patient of us.”
He added that “the consistently high level of communication, collaboration, and sharing of resources between different groups has truly made an untenable situation much more tolerable. The primary mission of the school experience remains open.”
“Even with the most current information available to us, predicting beyond the week at hand is nearly impossible. The decision to open or close school facilities is less and less in our hands,” he said. “We are confident that together whatever decisions are made in the coming weeks, Howell Township Public Schools will be ready to adapt and meet our next challenges.”
The superintendent added that while district staff continues to work with students, support families, and provide resources to those most in need, administrative teams and instructional coaches will continue to adjust “our Remote Learning Plans. While most of these revisions are for our staff, you can view updates to our plan and any other COVID-19 updates at our COVID-19 Updates webpage.”
Isola said, “as the amazing efforts of our educators shift toward teaching new content within the various curricular areas, we would like you to be mindful of a few things:
- Teaching is a deeply personal act that is built on the relationships between a teacher and a student.
- Learning, and therefore teaching, is highly contextual. What is said during the act of teaching and the process of learning is relevant to that moment. If heard in a different setting, those statements could be interpreted out of context and therefore misconstrued.
- The remote classroom is still a learning environment. Since that classroom may be entering your living room, we all need to work together to protect the confidentiality and privacy of our students and staff.
- Based on the above, we are requesting that you do not record or take pictures of video conferences; and please do not “live stream” video conferences to personal/private social media accounts.
Assuming there are no changes from this point forward, the district’s plans will be covered through the spring break which began on April 9.
He said the first phase of the district’s Remote Learning Plan, which ran from March 30 to April 9, featured more interactive, assignment-based model leveraging a variety of different web-based and district owned digital tools.
“Now that we are well inside of our remote learning experiences, the lessons will more explicitly focus on keeping pace within our curriculum. Some curricula have been adapted to compensate for scope and pacing changes due to the pandemic needs,” Isola said.
Isola added, “all lessons will be cognizant of varying access needs, as well as – and as always – the varying learning needs of each student. We would like to remind you that during this remote learning period, we are operating under the policies that govern home
instruction.”
The superintendent urged parents and guardians to use the guidelines he outlined, regarding expectations for the teaching and learning experience.
By following the guidelines, “we will be able to provide needed variety to the learning experiences and play a vital role in keeping your children engaged with their learning while they are at home,” Isola said.
“We will continue to communicate with you about our Remote Learning Plans and other supports we can offer you,” the superintendent concluded.
