January Messages

Hello Learning Coaches!

Welcome to our newest Learning Coaches who joined us this week. These weekly messages are sent to our Learning Coaches on Fridays to highlight important announcements, deadlines, and tips that you should be aware of. Please read the message and return to it after you have completed your on-boarding because some of the information will probably make more sense at that point.

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Remember, you can click the link for the audio recording of today's weekly message if you are unable to read the weekly messages at this time. If web links are contained below, the audio recording will direct you back to the message to access the links. (If you take advantage of the audio version of the message, please let me know if it is helpful.)

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Announcements

1. Next Monday, February 1st, is a very important day -- Count Day -- for public schools in the state of Louisiana. Among other things, Count Day determines funding for public schools based on attendance on that day. For our online school, attendance is measured by the number of students who are logged in. Please ensure that your child logs in next Monday, 2/1/21 to complete assignments or to continue Canvas training if the student is still in the on-boarding window (i.e., Phase II of the on-boarding course).

New Learning Coaches from 1-15-21 forward, my recent inquiries about the status of a dedicated computer for your child while waiting on ours was because of Count Day. Some of your children will not be able to login Monday if you are without a computer until ours arrives. If the computer arrives Monday, you will be able to proceed with "Phase II -- Canvas Training" from the UVA On-Boarding Course, and your child will login then. If not, that's okay. If your child will not have access to a computer on Monday and you have not replied to my Remind message already, please send me a message so that I can make a note.

2. An important automated phone call was made this morning regarding state testing. You will receive more information in February regarding test dates, locations, etc., but it is important that you understand the significance of state testing for all public schools and especially for University View Academy. Please read below if you did not hear the message this morning or if the call disconnected before you could hear everything.

UVA Families,

As an online, public charter school, University View Academy participates in state testing as mandated by the Louisiana Department of Education. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are ensuring the safety of our students, families, and staff by providing socially distanced testing areas, cleaning and sanitizing all surfaces and supplies in the testing area daily, and providing personal protective equipment including but not limited to masks and hand sanitizer. High volume touch surfaces, such as doorknobs, will be sanitized every two hours. Furthermore, masks will be required and temperatures will be checked on all individuals present in the testing area.

Please note that your participation in state testing is strongly encouraged as it directly impacts our school performance score. Any students in grades 3-12 who do not participate in state testing will negatively impact this rating. University View Academy will receive a zero for each test a student misses; therefore, one student’s absence may result in four zeros for UVA. The school performance score is pivotal to the upcoming renewal of our school charter and our ability to remain in existence and continue to serve your educational needs.

The Louisiana Department of Education specifies that state assessments for high school students will account for 15% of the course's final grade. Those students who do not participate will receive a zero as an assignment grade for the applicable course. Furthermore, passing scores on LEAP 2025 exams are a part of the high school graduation requirements for students in 9-12 grade and consideration for promotion of 8th-grade students.

We definitely understand the concerns that some parents and families may have regarding testing this spring as many teachers and school administrators also have their children enrolled at UVA this school year. We want you to know that your child's health and safety is our first and most important priority. We appreciate you continuing to navigate through these unprecedented times with us. Please note that more information about your child's specific testing location, date and time will be sent out over the next few months. from the testing department.

3. We held our January Info Sessions last Thursday, 1/21/21. The target audience for the sessions was our new Learning Coaches. We reviewed several tips and Canvas resources that are discussed in the UVA On-Boarding Course as well as a few "good-to-know" tips for Learning Coaches and students when first getting started at UVA. The recordings are available here. I encourage all new Learning Coaches to view one of the two recordings before next Monday, February 1st, if possible.

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Deadlines/Reminders

• We are nearing the end of National School Choice Week. January 30th is the deadline to participate if you would like to highlight UVA during this national event. If you missed the announcement, all of the info is available on your Learning Coach Communications Hub for you. Click here to access the flyer and info. We hope you and your children will participate so that our school can be highlighted nationally!

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Learning Coach (and Student) Tips and Resources

1. New Learning Coaches, the topic "Navigating the Fine Line Between Coaching and Tutoring/Teaching" is a good one to review from our October Info Session. Advance the playback bar of this Info Session video to that topic so that you can gain some insight into this really important nuance of your Learning Coach role. It will be very helpful.

2. Is your child's laptop behaving badly? Perhaps it's time for a restart. Heavily used computers require periodic restarts to "clean house" and help the computer to run optimally. With the kind of daily use that our students' laptops should be receiving, the laptops should be restarted at least three times per week. Please make sure routine restarts are part of your child's routine.

3. Check the Modules page, the Calendar, and the grade book every day to determine the completion status of the day's assignments. If an assignment has not been viewed or submitted, please redirect your child to complete the assignment that day if possible. That will minimize the occurrence of overdue assignments and will keep your child from becoming overwhelmed with a backlog. It will also make Live Sessions more meaningful.

4. Temporary 50 % scores are entered in the grade book when an assignment is more than two weeks old. We typically allow a short grace period at the beginning of the semester before 50% scores are entered. If you have not seen temporary 50% scores so far this semester, you can expect those scores to be entered for assignments that are more than two weeks old very soon.

Please note that your child's overall grade will be reduced when 50% scores are entered. However, a temporary 50% score will be replaced by the earned score when the student submits the overdue assignment.

Seeing a grade drop can be a shock for you and for your child. This is why so much emphasis is placed on monitoring your child's daily activities closely. Avoid the shock. Guide your child to stay on pace or to get on pace and stay on pace using the tools that are available to both of you.

5. Remember to run daily Missing Submission reports and hold your child accountable for completing overdue assignments before they pile up.

• The Alert Bell is available in the Canvas Student account to identify assignments that are flagged as MISSING from the day before or prior.

• The Missing Submissions report generates the same list of overdue assignments as the student's report, but it is found in your Observer account.

Please run one of the reports every day and redirect your child to begin completing un-submitted assignments the day the report is generated, if possible. Click on the links in the previous bullet list if you need a refresher on the location of those reports.

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Have a good weekend!

-- Eugenia Cardozo

Your Learning Coach Partner

225-421-2837, ecardozo@uview.academy, and Remind (preferred)

Hello Learning Coaches!

We are enrolling new students throughout January. So, welcome to our new Learning Coaches who are reading a Weekly Message for the first time.

These weekly messages are sent to our Learning Coaches on Fridays to highlight important announcements, deadlines, and tips that you should be aware of. They might not be meaningful to new brand Learning Coaches today, but please read the message and return to it after you have completed your on-boarding. Just be mindful of any deadlines that are highlighted below.

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Remember, you can click the link for the audio recording of today's weekly message if you are unable to read the weekly messages at this time. If web links are contained below, the audio recording will direct you back to the message to access the links. (If you take advantage of the audio version of the message, please let me know if it is helpful.)

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Announcements

1. The following announcement about student ids was released earlier this week. If you missed it or did not have access to it as a new Learning Coach, please read and take the appropriate action:

We are excited to announce that our second round of student badge requests for the 2020-21 school year is now open! This form is only for students who did not already request and receive a student badge in the Fall semester. After entering your information (student ID# is optional) upload your picture and submit the form. Since this photo will be used for student identification, make sure to present yourself accordingly. No hats or sunglasses, please. In addition, we request that all photos be taken against plain backgrounds, with nothing else in the frame. The photo should be a head shot that contains the shoulders and top of the head for the student. Please note that we may not be able to issue a badge for pictures that do not meet these requirements. This form will close ... on Thursday, January 28th at 11:59 pm. Student badges will begin shipping out the week of February 8th.

https://forms.gle/zMj9wL1DsAcftsRt8

2. We held our January Info Sessions yesterday, Thursday, 1/21/21. The target audience for the sessions was our new Learning Coaches, and several of our new Learning Coaches along with a couple of existing Learning Coaches attended. We reviewed several tips and Canvas resources that are discussed in the UVA On-Boarding Course as well as a few "good-to-know" tips for Learning Coaches and students when first getting started at UVA. The recordings are being converted to MP4 format right now so that you can view them easily on any device. When they are uploaded to this website, you can access the January recordings on this page. They will be posted before the day is over.

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Deadlines/Reminders

1. Please note the deadline for requesting badges for students who did not obtain a badge last semester is Thursday, January 28th at 11:59pm.

2. National School Choice Week begins next week and lasts from January 24th through January 30th. If you missed the announcement, all of the info is available on your Learning Coach Communications Hub for you. Click here to access the flyer and info. We hope you and your children will participate so that our school can be highlighted nationally!

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Learning Coach (and Student) Tips and Resources

1. If you have not bookmarked the home page for this Learning Coach Communications Hub so that you have quick access to it, click here and bookmark the home page. Remember, you have access to a useful Contact List page plus tips for items that are frequently asked about (e.g., Remind, etc.) and several other resources.

2. I continue to promote running daily Missing Submission reports in your weekly messages, but something to be aware of is that the report will not identify assignments that were due the day that you run the report. The Modules page, the Calendar, and the grade book are your checkpoints for completion of the day's assignments. Missing Submission reports will identify overdue assignments from the day before or prior. The Alert Bell is available in the Canvas Student account to identify assignments that are flagged as MISSING from the day before. The Missing Submissions report in your Observer account generates the same list. Please run one of the reports every day and redirect your child to complete un-submitted assignments that day. Click on the links in the previous sentences if you need a refresher on the location of those reports.

3. The topic "Navigating the Fine Line Between Coaching and Tutoring/Teaching" is a good one to review from our October Info Session. Advance this Info Session video to that topic so that you can gain some insight into this really important nuance of your Learning Coach role.

4. Did you realize you can login to your Remind account on a computer? Simply go to Remind.com and log in with your email address or phone number. (Gmail subscribers might want to select the option to login with Google.) You can find several tips about Remind on this page of the Technology Mart section of your Learning Coach Corner.

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New Learning Coaches will receive additional Remind messages from me throughout next week with daily guidance to progress through the UVA On-Boarding Course. Stay tuned...

Have a good weekend!

-- Eugenia Cardozo

Your Learning Coach Partner

225-421-2837, ecardozo@uview.academy, and Remind (preferred)

Hello Learning Coaches!

Two new sets of Learning Coaches have joined our family this week; one set began today. Welcome!

These weekly messages are sent on Fridays to highlight important announcements, deadlines, and tips that you should be aware of. They might not be meaningful to new brand Learning Coaches today, but please read the message and return to it after you have completed your on-boarding.

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Remember, you can click the link for the audio recording of today's weekly message if you are unable to read the weekly messages at this time. If web links are contained below, the audio recording will direct you back to the message to access the links. (If you take advantage of the audio version of the message, please let me know if it is helpful.)

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Announcements

1. 1st semester report cards and transcripts are available in the Student Progress Center.

NOTE: The Student Progress Center is not in Canvas. For a refresher about the Student Progress Center, click to go to the "Quick Links" page of this Learning Coach Communications Hub website, and select the link for the Student Progress Center. Please read the instructions carefully. Certain items are bolded and different font colors highlight important steps that will save you time.

2. I will be out of the office next Tuesday, 1/19 and Wednesday, 1/20.

• • Our newest Learning Coaches will receive pre-scheduled Remind messages from me to keep them moving forward through the UVA On-Boarding Course. I won't completely abandon you. :-) (Please contact Student Services for enrollment questions. You will find their phone numbers at the bottom of this Contact List page.)

  • For our more experienced Learning Coaches, most questions can be directed to the Advisory teacher or the Counselor. You will find their contact information on the home pages of their respective course cards.

  • Remember, Tech Support (aka The Help Desk) is open Monday - Friday from 7am - 6pm. The number is 225-286-1600. (I do not know if they will be open on Martin Luther King Day, which is Monday, 1/18.)

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Deadlines/Reminders

1. UVA observes Martin Luther King Day as a school holiday. We are closed next Monday, 1/18/21. There will be no assignments on the calendar that day. (Sounds like a catch-up day to me or a day off for students who are on pace.)

2. The Canvas Dashboard contains an announcement about National School Choice Week. It's this month! If you missed the announcement, all of the info is available on your Learning Coach Communications Hub for you. Click here to access the flyer and info.

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Learning Coach (and Student) Tips and Resources

1. Next Thursday, 1/21/21 is the date for our January Learning Coach Info Session. I am going to repeat some of the key points from our fall semester Info Sessions for our newest Learning Coaches to ensure they get an extra dose of up-front training and support. All Learning Coaches are welcome, especially if you'd like to share some of your best practices during the Q&A segment at the end, but our new Learning Coaches are asked to attend one of the sessions if you can. You have two choices for attendance:

DATE: Thursday, 1/21/21

TIMES: 11am* and 4pm* (attend the time that works for you)

LIVE SESSION ROOM LINK: Eugenia Cardozo's Live Session Room

*The room will open 10 minutes before the hour. Both sessions will be recorded, but live attendance is best so that you can ask questions and can network with other parents at the end if you'd like to.

NOTE: I will send a survey to get input about Info Session times for the remainder of the semester.

2. If you are a Learning Coach from the first semester and you did not have a chance to watch any of the December Info Session videos, in lieu of attending next Thursday's info session consider visiting this page to view the videos that are of interest to you. Videos range from 14 to 24 minutes in length.

3. Have you been running daily Missing Submission reports? A few parents have been caught off guard already and discovered that their children have not been completing assignments this week. Please have your child use the Alert Bell every day in the Canvas Student account to identify assignments that are flagged as MISSING from the day before. You can run the Missing Submissions report in your Observer account to generate the same list. Please run one of the reports every day and redirect your child to complete un-submitted assignments that day. Click on the links in the previous sentences if you need a refresher on the location of those reports. (Checking the Modules page, the Calendar, and/or the grade book will give you a view of what has not been completed that day. The Modules page is my favorite. It is highlighted in Video #2 on this page.)

4. Understood.com posted an article about helping children manage feelings and adopt flexible thinking strategies. These are useful life skills for all of us. Check out the article when you have time.

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I will send separate Remind messages to the 1/13/21 and 1/15/21 Learning Coaches with additional guidance for your on-boarding period before the day is over.

Have a good weekend!

-- Eugenia Cardozo

Your Learning Coach Partner

225-421-2837, ecardozo@uview.academy, and Remind (preferred)

Hello Learning Coaches!

Congratulations on reaching the end of the first week of school in January. Our newest students and Learning Coaches began their official journey with us on Wednesday. Welcome!

New Learning Coaches, weekly messages are sent on Fridays to highlight important announcements, deadlines, and tips that you should be aware of.

I am trying a new feature this week -- an audio recording of the weekly message -- and I hope it will assist those of you who are not in a position to read the weekly messages when it is sent. (Click the previous link to listen to the message.) Please note, if there are web links in the weekly message, you will be directed back to the written message (i.e., here). If you take advantage of the audio version of the message, please let me know if it is helpful.

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Announcements

1. 1st semester report cards and transcripts will be available in the coming days. Look for a school-level announcement that tells you when the reports have been uploaded to the Student Progress Center.

NOTE: The Student Progress Center is not in Canvas. For a refresher about the Student Progress Center, click to go to the "Quick Links" page of this Learning Coach Communications Hub website, and select the link for the Student Progress Center.

2. Did your child earn PBIS rewards last month? Recipients received the following message on Thursday, 1/7, "This is a notification that your $12 incentive award for earning your SP2 credential has been sent to your student Gmail account. You can access by logging into www.gmail.com with your canvas user id and password. Congratulations!"

3. A tip from the Counselors -- Click on the Calendar and make sure every course has the box colored in. If it doesn't, then the coursework will not show up on your calendar. To color in the box, simply click on it. (NOTE: This is important. Assignments will be overlooked otherwise.)

4. Student IDs are not required for your child's Remind account. From Remind, "When students get invited or add themselves to classes and get the message requesting the ID, they can simply ignore it, as they are still added to the class as normal."

5. We are shifting out of "soft start" mode into a regular schedule next week.

   • Elementary school orientations will occur on Monday, 1/11. Live Sessions and the standard daily assignment schedule will begin on Tuesday, 1/12.

   • Students in grades 6-8 will begin their regular Live Session schedule and course assignments on Monday, 1/11.

   • High school teachers in grades 9-12 will host course orientation sessions on Monday, 1/11. Course assignments and the standard Live Session schedule will begin on Tuesday, 1/12. (Middle school students who take high school courses will follow the high school schedule for their high school courses.)

Please look at the Calendar with your child today so you know what next week looks like.

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Deadlines/Reminders

1. A school/national holiday is on the horizon: Martin Luther King Day, Monday, 1/18/21.

2. I just discovered that my Remind message only went to one Learning Coach group on December 11th. As a result, most of you missed out on viewing the December Info Session Videos. My apologies. Please click here to access these informative recordings.

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Learning Coach (and Student) Tips and Resources

1. Did your child get a good start this week? This is the time to establish or resume good monitoring routines to help your child stay on pace. Please ensure all soft start assignments have been completed by next Monday morning, 1/11. Remember to run a missing submissions report. You can use the Alert Bell in the student's account to identify assignments that are flagged as MISSING in the grade book or run the Missing Submissions report in your Observer account to generate the same list. Click on the links in the previous sentence for a review about the location of those reports.

2. Create your Canvas Observer account and/or double check that your account is paired with all of the students that you are observing. Students benefit from having an Observer for this and many other reasons. Follow the tutorial(s) on this page for the scenario or scenarios that apply to you. The instructions are quick and easy. (NOTE: Use Step 2 on the page to pair additional students.)

3. Click here to review a tutorial on sending a Canvas message to multiple teachers at the same time.

4. Is your child frustrated because the pdf files that they upload are blank even though they typed their answers? Click here to read a set of quick instructions that will probably eliminate the issue.

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Have a good weekend.

-- Eugenia Cardozo

Your Learning Coach Partner

225-421-2837, ecardozo@uview.academy, and Remind (preferred)