Hello Winthrop Middle School Remote Families and Students, October 16, 2020

NWEA testing this week, overall, has gone well. I have seen so many of your children's faces through our virtual sessions- wow, did they work hard! We have two more sessions this coming Monday (Science) and Tuesday (Reading).

As you know, remote students have been engaging with content-specific activities and lessons through various Google Classrooms. Our teachers have been working hard to prepare materials for students learning remotely while also teaching in-person students during regular school hours. As you can imagine, this has been a challenging task.

We are now able to provide our WMS virtual learners with additional supports and opportunities by restructuring the 6-8 remote program, and will continue to add to it as staffing allows. I am thrilled to announce that we will have two, entirely remote teachers, who are already familiar with Winthrop and the middle school. Mr. Blanchard will be teaching all remote 6-8th grade students English and social studies starting Thursday, October 22nd. He will eventually be joined by Mr. Burnham who will be teaching 6-8 math and science classes. Mrs. Criss and/or I will update you all when that transition is ready to happen.

These teachers will be working collaboratively to provide an engaging virtual environment that utilizes the same programming as in-person teaching at WMS. This includes the Discovering Our Past series, Savvas Realize Math and Interactive Science. Unified Arts will continue to be offered daily, to our remote learners. Like our in-person learners, remote lessons will occur Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. On Wednesday, students will receive a message from a remote teacher, prompting them to complete an assignment or to check in.

Mr. Blanchard and Mr. Burnham have developed a schedule (see below) to provide structure and expectations for their virtual learners which will contain both synchronous (live) and asynchronous (pre-prepared) activities and lessons. This will be an adjustment from the current remote learners’ day, as they will be expected to log in for live lessons using Google Meets. Only sessions with Mr. Blanchard will be beginning next week. Hopefully, Mr. Burnham will be able to join soon. Some individual student schedules will vary based on student need, so if you already have set up a schedule with Mrs. Guerette or Mrs. Carver, please maintain that schedule.

The most thorough planning and preparing will still have hick-ups. As students, and teachers, get reacquainted with the changes in digital teaching and learning let’s be patient with each other. If any issues arise please reach out to these dedicated professionals, or myself, and we will support you as best we can. Please be on the lookout for additional communication next week from Mr. Blanchard, our “new”, fully-remote English and social studies teacher.

We are excited to begin offering you a soon-to-be entirely virtual program designed to help all WMS remote learners grow, learn and interact digitally.

We can’t wait to “see” your kids next week,

Meagan White