HTH

The summer has been an incredibly busy time for us at High Tech High and I want to update you all with important news for the fall reopening and the start of school. Each week that passes seems to bring new guidelines for us, and so please bear in mind that while I currently believe that the summary here will accurately describe the coming semester, some details are likely to change!

The School day and Bell Schedule

School will start at 9:00 each day, and the school day will consist of 6 distinct periods, each of 1 hour. The first 5 will be for academic instruction and learning with the sixth being an enrichment block. The enrichment block will be where we have teacher office hours, advisory and time for clubs & x-block. There will also be academic coaches available to host tutoring time during this period. We aim to satisfy the State’s 240 minute instructional time requirement within the 5 periods of instructional time leaving the enrichment period free for community building and optional study help.

Individual Student Schedules

We are currently working with teams to determine schedules for students that fit the plans that each team has – some teams are asking for block schedules while others wish to keep to shorter periods in the hope of reducing Zoom-fatigue. Below are two possible schedule formats:

This first schedule reflects a block schedule with lots of time for whole-team activities. The teachers are actively teaching in periods 1, 2, 4 & 5. Suitable primarily for 9th and 10th grade 3-teacher teams, we would aim to divide the team into three groups of around 21 students each. In this model students would be with a teacher for 4 hours each day (no more than 22 per teacher) and would have an hour of independent work time in Period 3.

The schedule below might be one that we would implement in 11th and 12th grade. Again, class sizes would be around 21 -22 students and students would spend 4 hours in the presence of a credentialed teacher (Periods 1 – 4). This model allows teacher-supervised project work time (pink) as well as daily lesson time in Math Humanities and Science.

For periods labelled “Independent work time” teachers will be busy teaching other classes, though Academic Coaches will be available to assist students. The remaining four academic periods will have a credentialed teacher supervising students.

The exact schedule that your student receives will depend on the teaching team (team teachers will help design it based on the project and the material they are teaching). Schedules will be ready to send out the week before school starts.

Honors Classes

We will be offering honors classes the same as we would during in-class learning. Honors work typically consists of extra assignments completed independently. In 11th and 12th grade, Honors can be taken in English, History, Math and Science classes. In 10th grade we offer honors in Spanish only. Students will indicate an intent to pursue honors within the first few weeks of school, and any student may opt to take honors. Please bear in mind that the extra work will be graded, and honors cannot be dropped past a certain date (usually around week 5).

Advisory

We will continue advisory this year, and new students & families should be hearing from their advisor soon.

Chromebook Check-out

We have a limited number of Chromebooks available for students to borrow if they need access to technology. If your student needs a device to complete their work then please look for an additional email coming within the next week with more details. In the meantime you can complete this device agreement.

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