Program Information & Communications

McCyber Families,

I want to take a moment to share some updated information for the McCyber program, as well as for the district.

The district is excited to welcome back all K-5 students in both elementary buildings four days a week beginning Monday, March 8^th.

As we prepare for this transition, Shannon Curtis accepted the 2^nd grade position at Claysville Elementary and she will no longer be the K-5 McCyber Facilitator for the district. This role will be filled by the Claysville and Joe Walker guidance counselors, as well as myself. You will be receiving an email from your child’s facilitator in the next few days. We are committed to providing you and your child the support needed to be successful within the McCyber Program.

If you do decide to transition back to your home elementary school, please contact me and we can start the transition back to your designated building.

Important reminders regarding the K-5 McCyber Program.

Targeted McCyber Academic Progress for the end of the 3^rd 9 weeks- April 1, 2021

Grades K-2

English Language Arts- 50%

Mathematics- 50%

Science- 75%

Social Studies- 75%

Art- 75%

Music- 75%

Physical Education- 75%

Grades 3-5

English Language Arts- 50%

Mathematics- 50%

Science- 50%

Social Studies- 50%

Art- 75%

Music- 75%

Physical Education- 75%

Attendance, make sure that you are logging on five days each week to complete lessons. Please ensure that your child is active in their courses for a minimum of an hour to ensure they are present for the day. If this is not reached, your child will be marked absent for that particular day.

Just a few reminders about being successful within the McCyber Learning Model:

• As you know, setting a daily schedule for your child to follow is very important for staying on track. This learning model might be flexible, but it’s especially important that your child knows that their classroom time is on a specific schedule.

• Set up a dedicated workspace, as learning requires concentration and minimal distractions.

Contact information for the McCyber Program:

McG Teacher Facilitators/ Guidance Counselors-

• • Ms. McGraw (Clasville K-2) )- mcgraws@mcguffey.k12.pa.us

  • Mrs. McLaughlin (Claysville 3-5)- mclaughlins@mcguffey.k12.pa.us

  • Ms. Delvitto (Joe Walker K-5)- delvittos@mcguffey.k12.pa.us

McCyber Administrator/ Claysville Assistant Principal

• • Mr. Wolfe- wolfem@mcguffey.k12.pa.us

Thank you for your support.

Mr. Matthew Wolfe

Assistant Principal

Claysville Elementary School

Elementary McCyber Families,

As the 1^st semester came to a close yesterday (1/28/21), I wanted to give you some updates and reminders regarding the Elementary McCyber Program.

1. McCyber Report Cards will be mailed home on 2/4/21

2. Looking ahead, the end of the 3^rd nine weeks will be on 4/1/21. The percentage of each courses progress by the end of the 3^rd nine weeks is as follows:

3. As we start transitioning to the second semester, we want to support your child’s learning in the best possible way within this learning model. So, we will be setting up meetings based on your child’s needs for the remainder of the school year. These check-ins will allow us to help you and your child be successful in the McCyber Program.

4. Attendance, make sure that you are logging on five days each week to complete lessons. Please ensure that students are active in their courses for a minimum of an hour to ensure they are present for the day.

5. Just a few reminders about being successful within the McCyber Learning Model:

5. 1. As you know, setting a daily schedule for your child to follow is very important for staying on track. This learning model might be flexible, but it’s especially important that your child knows that their classroom time is on a specific schedule.

5. 2. Set up a dedicated workspace, as learning requires concentration and minimal distractions.

Contact information for the McCyber Program:

• McG Teacher Faciliator-

  • Shannon Curtis, curtiss@mcguffey.k12.pa.us

• Guidance Counselors

  • Ms. McGraw (Claysville K-2)- mcgraws@mcguffey.k12.pa.us

  • Mrs. McLaughlin (Claysville 3-5)- mclaughlins@mcguffey.k12.pa.us

  • Ms. Delvitto (Joe Walker K-5)- delvittos@mcguffey.k12.pa.us

• McCyber Administrator/ Claysville Assistant Principal

  • Mr. Wolfe- wolfem@mcguffey.k12.pa.us

Thank you,

Mr. Matthew Wolfe

Assistant Principal

Claysville Elementary School

Good morning 6-12 McCyber families,

Hope you had a nice weekend. A few updates for you:

1. McCyber students in grades 6-12 follow the IU1 CSI/Fusion Calendar (https://tinyurl.com/iu12021) Students do have school on Wednesday of this week and should log their attendance. Also, please note that Term 1 ends on October 30.

2. Speaking of attendance…make sure that’s getting logged each day by 8:30am. Most of you have been doing an awesome job with this! If you have any issues with it, please reach out to Mrs. Laffey (laffeys@mcguffey.k12.pa.us).

3. Parent/Teacher Conferences for McGuffey are scheduled for this Wednesday. I know I’m not your child’s teacher, but if I can help with something and you’d like to set up time to talk with me and/or your child’s counselor, please let me know and we’ll reach out to you to schedule a phone call or virtual meeting.

4. If you’re interested in returning to Hybrid learning at McGuffey as we approach the end of Term 1, please call your school’s office to let them know or reply to this email and I’ll pass that information along. Remember, your cyber/hybrid grades transfer with you when you switch programs, so please make sure you’re taking your classes seriously. McCyber requires a lot of discipline and independence, and I’m proud of how hard many of you are working in the program.

5. If you’d like to submit a photo to be included in the yearbook, please send those to Ms. Nicolella for middle school (nicolellac@mcguffey.k12.pa.us) or Ms. Group for the high school (groupca@mcguffey.k12.pa.us).

Have a great week!

Mr. H

Good morning K-5 McCyber families:

I hope you’re doing well. If you recall, in the summer we mentioned in our sessions that the district was going to restrict changes between cyber and hybrid (in-person) to the end of each grading period. As of now, the date for the end of first term is October 30, and the end of the second term is January 15. Remember that our elementary (Lincoln Learning) students follow the McGuffey School District calendar, whereas our secondary students follow the IU1 Fusion Calendar.

We know there have been challenges for some families in the previous weeks, especially as they relate to technology access. During these early weeks of the school year, we have been flexible in allowing students to change back to hybrid. We will continue to allow students to come back to Hybrid learning until Wednesday, September 23. After that, we will not be able to honor changes back to Hybrid until the end of 1^st Quarter (Oct. 30).

If you would like to bring your child back in the Hybrid model, please call your building’s main office or email your child’s principal and let them know by 9/23.

Claysville: 724-663-7772
Ms. Fleck: flecks@mcguffey.k12.pa.us

Joe Walker: 724-222-3061
Dr. Gottron: gottrond@mcguffey.k12.pa.us

Thanks,
Mr. H

Hi High School McCyber Families,

By now, you should have received an email from Mrs. Sibert with a letter from me with information about your login for IU1 Fusion’s Moodle platform (https://csi.iu1.org). Please check either the parent email address you used when signing up for McCyber, or check your child’s McGuffey email address. If you cannot find the email with the username and password, please email Mrs. Sibert so she can resend it (sibertl@mcguffey.k12.pa.us). Please note, your courses are not yet available in Moodle, so your logins won’t show you anything yet.

As of Saturday, only 54 of the 98 students in the high school signed up for McCyber have completed their course request form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfKes-JRt1LsFHYcZIOlDSaGZiRAUkgyGjiqvqivB-fFGoH_Q/viewform. You must be signed into your McGuffey account to submit the form. You must complete this form so your counselors can review your elective choices, correct any issues, and submit your course enrollments (and that takes some time). Remember, your McGuffey HS course requests from the spring are not going to be the same for McCyber. IU1 and McGuffey HS have different course catalogs (https://tinyurl.com/fusioncatalog). If we don’t receive your request form, we will have to pick electives for you in order for you to be able to start school on Tuesday, September 1^st.

If you have already completed your course request form, make sure you pay attention to your email in case your counselor has sent you a follow-up email requesting more information. Your enrollments are being processed and you should be able to access your courses in Moodle by Monday afternoon if you’ve gotten your course requests turned in on time. If by 2:00pm on Monday your courses are not displaying in Moodle, please email me and let me know.

Thank you, have a great rest of your weekend.

Mr. H

Good morning K-5 McCyber Families,

A few things have popped up this morning that I wanted to send to everybody:

1. I didn’t know when I did the training with you that the usernames for Pulse/Buzz are case sensitive. If you just use lower cases it should log you in. So instead of 33SMITJOHN try 33smitjohn. The passwords are the lunch numbers. Remember the login link is https://pulse.llsapps.org. You don’t use the @mcguffey.k12.pa.us for this part of the login.

2. When your child logs in, it actually bypasses Pulse and takes them straight into the Buzz learning platform. So ignore what I said about clicking on the little bee in the corner. I was making things more difficult than necessary!

3. When logging into your Chromebook, you’ll need to use your child’s full email address (example: 33SMITJOHN@mcguffey.k12.pa.us).

4. We’ve created a Google Classroom where students/families can get information and reach out to the McGuffey Teacher Facilitators (Ms. Curtis and Ms. Morton). If you go to: https://classroom.google.com/c/NDE5MzIyMjc5MjVa?cjc=r2fdpt2 you should be able to gain access.
   You’ll need to be logged in on your child’s McGuffey Google account to join. Ms. Curtis (curtiss@mcguffey.k12.pa.us) and Ms. Morton (mortone@mcguffey.k12.pa.us) can you help access it, and so can I.

5. If you haven’t been able to log in today, or you got in late, don’t panic. We’re flexible, and we’ll get you taken care of!

Thanks,
Mr. H

Good evening

This is a message from the McGuffey School District regarding McCyber. If your child is not enrolled in our 5-day a week McCyber learning program, then you may hang up.

For our students in grades K-5, your Lincoln Learning user accounts and class enrollments should be complete. Please check by logging in. The login link is https://pulse.llsapps.org. When you log in, it should take you directly to the Buzz platform where your learning will take place. You can also click on this link from the McCyber webpage.

Remember, your log in user id is the same as your McGuffey student Google account. It’s the two numbers associated with your graduation year, (like 28 for a 5^th grader, 30 for a 3^rd grader, and 32 for a 1^st grader), followed by the first four letters of your last name, followed by the first four letters of your first name. Your password is your 6-digit lunch number.

If you’re having trouble accessing anything, please call or email your school office and we will look into the issue for you.

For McCyber students in MS and HS, your counselors are working on your course enrollments this week. Your usernames and passwords will be different than your McGuffey username and password, so we’ll pass that information along to you when it’s ready. If you’re in HS, please complete the form that was emailed out today or access it from the McCyber webpage on the McGuffey School District homepage. Remember HS students, you have to sign in to your McGuffey Google account to complete the form.

If you have not been receiving our emails but you are signed up for McCyber, please call your school office and let the secretary know so we can ensure you receive these email updates.

Thank you, and have a good evening.

Dear McCyber Grades 6-12 Families,

We’re excited to have you joining our McCyber initiative! As a McCyber student, you’re considered a full McGuffey student, with access to extracurricular activities, field trips, etc. I wanted to provide an update and reiterate some things I’ve previously shared.

McCyber Webpages
First, if you haven’t been able to tune in to our information sessions or see the FAQs, I encourage you to check them out here: https://sites.google.com/mcguffey.k12.pa.us/mccyber. You can also access these pages from the blue McCyber button on the McGuffey School District homepage.

Student User Accounts
Your student user accounts will be generated at the time of your enrollment into your courses. Course enrollments just opened today, and it takes a little while to get everybody into the system. There’s nothing you need to do regarding enrollment unless you get specific directions from your guidance counselor. Otherwise, they’ll be working on getting you registered behind the scenes. When your account is set up, you will get a notification from us that says you can log in and see your courses. The login link for Moodle is https://csi.iu1.org

Calendar
Don’t forget that our 6-12 McCyber students are following the IU1 Academic Calendar, which means classes don’t start until September 1^st.

Gradebook
For most of your classes, your grades will be online through a program called Jupiter Ed. It will be the same login as your student user account. If you are in an elective or class specifically offered only for McGuffey students, your grade for that one course will be through PowerSchool.

Student Orientation Course
All students will be enrolled in an ungraded course when you first log into Moodle that allows you to get familiar with the various ways of navigating Moodle, submitting assignments, etc.

AP/Honors/Advanced Courses
IU1 does not offer AP courses. They do offer some honors/advanced courses. McGuffey will be working to build more of them down the road to offer our McCyber students more options.

McGuffey-specific Courses
There are some courses that McGuffey is designing for our kids specifically: Intro to Agriscience, Wildlife and Conservation, HS Band, and hopefully MS Band this year! We’ll continue to build more of these.

Jet Packs for Cellular Internet
I’m aware that several families have indicated the need for one of McGuffey’s Jet Pack devices to help with their internet connection in the cyber program. Mr. Wilson is working on distributing and activating these along with the Chromebook each student receives. If there are questions regarding either of those devices, please reach out to McGStudentHelpDesk@mcguffey.k12.pa.us or Mr. Wilson directly at wilsonm@mcguffey.k12.pa.us.

I’ll keep in touch with updates as they become available. Thanks!

-Mr. H

Dear K-5 McCyber Families,

I just wanted to reach out and provide you an update on the status of enrollment with Lincoln Learning, as I’m sure you’re wondering with the first day of school coming up this Thursday!

All K-5 students who have indicated McCyber enrollment as their learning environment choice to start the year have had their user accounts submitted for creation. Once they are verified (I believe that will be completed tomorrow), we will submit their course enrollments. The enrollments are ready to go, we just can’t hit submit until the user accounts are finished being set up! As soon as everything is ready, we’ll let you know.

Logging into PULSE/Buzz
Once we give you the green light that enrollments are complete, students will be able to log in to PULSE (https://pulse.llsapps.org/). PULSE is the “user” end of things. There will be both a student account and a parent account created for each child that you’ll access through PULSE. From there, you will see in the top right corner the little “bee” symbol for the Buzz learning platform (it should redirect you into Buzz automatically). Remember, Buzz is where all of the coursework takes place for students.

Parent Accounts
We’re working on setting your parent user accounts up, but they’re a bit more involved than setting up the student accounts. They may not be ready by Thursday, but we’re working on them as quickly as we can. You will still be able to view your child’s progress through the student account, but the parent account will give you a bit more information once it’s ready. You can always reach out to one of our McCyber Teacher Facilitators or your guidance counselor for support as well.

Student Account/Login Information:
Username: your child’s graduation year, the first four letters of their last name, and the first four letters of their first name. This is our standard system for student accounts at McGuffey.
Password: your child’s unique 6-digit McGuffey student ID number.

How to determine your McGuffey username:

1. The first two digits are your child’s graduation year. Ex: 28 for the year 2028.

2. The next four letters are the first four letters of your child’s last name.

3. The next four letters are the first four letter of your child’s first name.

Example: John Smith in first grade (graduating in 2032) would be: 32SMITJOHN

There are a few occasions where a student’s username might not match this exact model. If it doesn’t, but you know the correct account information you usually use, then proceed with that for your login. If it’s not letting you into the system, please let me or somebody at the school know as soon as possible and we’ll get it fixed for you. Again, nobody should be able to get in yet, but we’ll let you know when you can!

Kindergarten = 2033
First Grade = 2032
Second Grade = 2031
Third Grade = 2030
Fourth Grade = 2029
Fifth Grade = 2028

McCyber Teacher Facilitators

Ms. Shannon Curtis will be the McCyber Teacher Facilitator for grades K-2, and Ms. Erica Morton will be for grades 3-5. They’re still familiarizing themselves with the platforms, but they’ll be working closely with me, the guidance counselors, and the principals to support all of you.

Finally, don’t forget to check out the McCyber webpages for helpful info. https://sites.google.com/mcguffey.k12.pa.us/mccyber - You can also find this link on the McCyber button on the McGuffey School District homepage.

I’ll be in touch soon! Take care,

Mr. H

Dear McGuffey Cyber Families,

I hope this letter finds you well. If you are receiving this letter, it means we have received your request to enroll your child in McGuffey School District’s cyber program, which we refer to as “McCyber”. The next steps look a little different depending on which school building(s) your child/children may be enrolled in for the upcoming year.

Learning Platforms

For our students in grades K-5, the McCyber program will be offered through Lincoln Learning Solutions. The learning platform our elementary students will be using is called Buzz. Most learning will take place in an asynchronous format, where students complete their learning at their own pace.

For our students in grades 6-12, McCyber will mostly be offered through Intermediate Unit 1’s Fusion program. The learning platform our secondary students will be using is called Moodle. Again, most learning will take place in an asynchronous format, where students complete their learning at their own pace.

Internet Access

If you indicated on your Return to School survey that you do not have internet access at home, but do have a cellular signal, the district will be able to provide you with a device which will enable an internet connection through a cellular signal. If you indicated that you do not have internet access at home, nor a cellular signal, the district will not be able to provide an internet solution for your home. You will have to travel to a place with an internet connection at least daily to make use of the McCyber option.

Upcoming Trainings for Families

We will be offering two virtual training sessions (one for elementary and one for secondary) for McCyber families to learn more about the details of the program. The tentative date is August 19^th, with a 5:30pm session for elementary families and a 6:30pm session for secondary families. We will share with you connection information as the date gets closer.

During the trainings, we will walk you through what your online courses will look like, how to get help when you need it, assignment submission, etc. We will record those sessions and make them available for families who may not be able to attend the live session to view afterward. During those trainings, we will share more specific information about attendance policies, using Buzz and/or Moodle, the different information available to parents, what kind of support you will receive from McGuffey faculty, etc.

We know you may have more questions about the program, and it is our intention to answer each of them as thoroughly and transparently as possible. If you were not able to attend the Town Hall session on Tuesday, July 28, you can view it in its entirety at this link: https://youtu.be/_7V07Oje05c. In the meantime, you can still continue to use returntoschool@mcguffey.k12.pa.us as an email address to get questions answered. We look forward to working alongside you and serving your family through the McCyber program.

Sincerely,

Mr. Haroutounian