FAQ

Distance learning is a method of educating students who are not physically present at a school, using a combination of digital and physical resources. Although it is new for EJA, it has been around for a long time - in fact, Miss P. was homeschooled through distance learning from 5th grade all the way through university! It might seem daunting, particularly as we are so far into the year, but the good news is your student has used tools and practiced skills that have already partially prepared them for learning at home, and the teachers at EJA are determined to see them succeed!

Thanks to the many resources we have available today via the internet, students are more capable of independent learning than ever before. While it is more ideal to be there with the teacher and have access to immediate and physical help, most children have a natural capacity for curiosity, investigation, and problem-solving that allows them to learn as long as they are provided the right tools. They already do this frequently, be it in their personal lives or school lives (e.g. using Google to answer questions, finding tutorials on YouTube). How many students became scientists and entrepreneurs by watching slime tutorials?

However, that is not to say your student won't require assistance and won't need to be taught. We ask that parents do their best to help students through their work as needed, and teachers will be on standby to provide further assistance.

We understand that it will be difficult to accomplish a full day of school at home, so we have gone through our curriculum and narrowed it down to the essentials and things that students will likely be able to accomplish with less in-person help. Depending on your student's age level, their level of work will look different. Students in Kindergarten-2nd Grade will do around 3.5.-4 hours of work a day. Students in 3rd-4th Grade will do around 4-4.5 hours of work a day. Students in 5th-8th Grade will do around 4.5-5 hours of work a day. These times are an estimate and may shift depending on the day, the assignments, and the pace at which your student works.

In the materials that you picked up for your student is a laminated card that contains the username and password information for all of the resources we use here at the school, as well as any extra codes they might need. A copy of that card will be uploaded into your student's Class Dojo Portfolio as well. If you aren't able to access the information either of those ways, send your teacher a message.

There are a variety of different ways to help your students.

Academic - Before contacting the teacher, see if it's something that can be solved at home. If you aren't sure how to answer a question in MobyMax, for example, try watching the tutorial with your student or access the hint (your student likely knows where these things are). If it's a problem with a written assignment or activity, read the instructions carefully with your student (they like to skim). If you still aren't able to solve the problem or you sense it's something your student needs deeper instruction in, contact the teacher and set up an appointment to work through the issue.

Technical - Use the troubleshooting information found on the Chromebook Tutorials page. Often the technical issues students have can be resolved with solutions as simple as reentering their passwords carefully, refreshing a page, or turning the computer off and back on. If the solutions on the tutorials page don't work, or if the computer is obviously broken, contact Mia Pomales (Miss P.) straight away.

Your teacher will be available for at least 8 hours every day, and you are able to contact them in a variety of ways. A parent's first method of contact should always be ClassDojo, as this is our primary parent communication tool. However, we can also be reached via email and phone. Your student can always contact us through our email, Google Hangouts, or through comments left via Google Classroom/Google Apps. Each teacher's preferred contact hours can be found on their Schedule page.

Depending on the grade level and teacher of your student, there will be a couple of different ways your student will know what they need to do. All students will have access to their teacher's Google Site, which will contain the lesson plans for the week and online resources they will use. Their ability to use that information independently will vary.

Kindergarten-2nd Grade will need almost total adult guidance to know what is expected of them from day to day, but will able to do certain familiar things (e.g. navigate MobyMax/ABCMouse) on their own. 1st-2nd Grade will have resources on Google Classroom that many of them should be able to access with some assistance. Instructions will be given on an activity-by-activity basis, and will sometimes be via recorded videos.

3rd-4th Grade will need some adult guidance to know what is expected of them, but will able to adapt to finding information on their own as they become more familiar with the tools and resources they use. Instructions will be given on an activity-by-activity basis.

5th-8th Grade will need the least amount of adult guidance. They will be able to access this website independently and find most of their assignments on Google Classroom, as well as a calendar of due dates and virtual meetings. They will be able to access teacher lesson plans independently. Instructions will be given mostly through Google Classroom, and often available in more than one place with most assignments. Students in 5th-8th Grade will be required to attend a 10:00am meeting every morning, during which we will have Bible and go over the assignments for the day. They will also fill out a digital form every day to report what work they completed.

Teachers will be posting their weekly lesson plans on their class sites, and these plans will tell you what your student needs to accomplish during that week. Additionally, MobyMax and Google Classroom both have parent views. With MobyMax, you can sign in via the 'Parent' option using your student's log-in information. With Google Classroom, you can sign up to have a summary of your student's assigned work sent to you. You are also able to log in as your student on any of the resources we have available and see what work they have done.

1st & 2nd Grade will have a form for parents to fill out at the end of every week to help keep track of what work was completed.

Most work will need to be completed and submitted by the end of the week it is assigned. There are three main methods students will use in order to submit their work.

Drop-off Day - Parents will be able to drop off physical paperwork and projects and pick new ones up every Friday between 9am and 6pm. This will be used primarily by Kindergarten-4th grade, although there will be occasional physical assignments and materials to be returned and picked up.

ClassDojo Portfolio - Parents and students will be able to take photos of completed work and send them via ClassDojo Portfolios. This will be on an assignment-by-assignment basis, and used primarily by Kindergarten-4th Grade for big projects.

Google Classroom - Students will submit work by completing already generated assignments or attaching work through the Google Classroom portal. You can find tutorials for this on the Google Classroom Tutorials page. This will be used primarily by 5th-8th Grade, although younger grades will use this some as well.

Our school chromebooks are filtered using Securly. This is a program that runs directly through their Google accounts, and allows the school to see their history, block websites, monitor usage, and more. It also allows us to see student screens in real time during school hours. However, it is not infallible. No system is perfect. Students thrive on finding loopholes and ways around the rules, and sometimes seemed determined to do anything other than what they're supposed to. Certain tools, like Google Hangouts and Google Sites, are usually blocked on student Chromebooks because of the ways they can be abused. Due to the requirements of distance learning, several of those features will need to remain unblocked.

Teachers will not be able to monitor your students every minute of the day, particularly without being in the room with them, so we ask that you remain very vigilant of your student's computer use. If we find that students are not using their Chromebooks appropriately, we will do what we can on our end and contact you. If a student continues to abuse their privilege, the school may need to take the computer back.

There are a variety of ways your student's learning will be tracked throughout the Distance Learning program. These ways vary depending on the grade level and teacher, but some school-wide methods include:

• MobyMax Lesson Results - The results from the work your student completes in MobyMax can tell us a great deal. How long is their work taking them, whether or not they are staying focused, how well they understood the subject, what areas of improvement do they need, and more.

• MobyMax Benchmark Assessments - These are tests that monitor how much of a student's grade level standards they know (e.g. a student in 5th grade should by now know 65-75% of 5th grade standards in Math). Benchmark assessments are typically given once or twice a quarter.

• Literably - Your student will record themselves reading a leveled passage and answer a few comprehension questions, and it will then be assessed by the Literably team. Literably assessments tell us how fast your student reads, how fluently, how correctly, and how much they understand. It gives us your student's reading level. These assessments will likely be bi-weekly.

• RAZ Kids/Reading A-Z - Time/Reading Progress

• Graded/Submitted Paperwork

• Graded/Submitted Digital Work

The supplies your student will need varies from grade level to grade level and depends on the teacher. All students will need basic school supplies. Some students will already have them to take home, and some classes are providing start-up kits with pencils, paper, glue sticks, etc. that were donated at the beginning of the year. Extra supplies and materials for projects will be available for pickup throughout the duration of our distance learning program.

Students will also need their electronic device (Kindergarten - Leapfrog Epics, 1st-2nd - Chrome Tablets, 3rd-8th - Chromebooks), a charger for the device, and an internet connection.