As a child I was moved during the school year several times and it had a very disruptive effect on me educationally and socially. It takes time to get in the groove with a teacher and class and that relationship allows the teachers to understand the needs of the children. While everyone is enduring the current turmoil, we feel it is important to keep a sense of stability with the teachers staying with their classes. We also don't think it's fair to teachers to expect them to somehow carry this burden on top of everything that is being asked of them already. Thank you.

Carl Jones

Opening Statement by Jason Marshall:
The solutions that we are searching for are not perfect but they are solutions that we hope provide the most support for the boys and girls in our community, our teachers and our families. We know that our families are partners in thsi wokr and we couldn't have done this without them. We appreciate your support and we look forward to a time when we can come together and be with one another face to face. 
I want to say thank you to our board which I often have to remind myself is a volunteer board. I know that our board members give a lot of time to support our school, to provide feedback, to provide advice, to be thought partners and we appreciate them for that.

Review of the proposed re-opening plan. 

APS has elected to postpone their retun to live or hybrid learning until January. 
During our last board meeting, we presented 4 different scenarios for returning. (A-D)
This evening we are presenting 1 scenario for return or for possible return: Option E

As a result of these changes, we will be issuing additional Intent to Return Survey.

Dr. Satterfiled & Dr. Pullen reviewed metrics that will be used in determining when we are able to return to the building.

Please reference slide 4-6
(document link: https://app2.boardontrack.com/public/5YrtSZ/documents)

How this data is being used:
- using CDC Indicators (blue column)
- using metrics determined by APS*
- reference Fulton County Department of Health metrics

CDC & DPH data may differ which is due to lag in reporting. 

WIA will be using more conservative metric.

• *Board's Request: please provide the APS metrics that will allow us to establish what the cut off is

Results of the Intent to Return Surveys:

PARENTS:
Currently we are at 80% completion. We are currently have 811 students enrolled, with entries from 600, so we are still missing 165 students. 

We are identifying students that are missing in order to reach out individually. 

TEACHERS & STAFF:
We spent our fall break at reaching out and having conferences one on one with all of our staff members to allow them to have some opportunities to express their concerns as well as talk about any individual circumstances that may create a barrier for their return. Teaching staff 53% of them or 30 of them elected to come back and 38% of them elected to not come back. These numbers include special education teachers, Chinese, and connections. 

ATTENDANCE: 
We also reviewed attendance and how it compares to last year. On the chart in the re-opening document, grey line reflects last year numbers, and blue line current, virtual, school. 

Virtual instructions does have some barriers for attendance whether it's technology, childcare supervision, time management and I think we have that shown in our data overwhelmingly that our parents are wanting to return to in person because of those barriers.

• Board's Request: would like to review how WIA's attendance compares to APS.

We are documenting these absences but most importantly are working on providing support to eliminate any barriers cause students to not log in. 
Our social worker has been working really hard on finding learning pods and providing opportunities to enroll in them.
If it's a technology barrier, we're making sure that  we set the students up with a hotspot. And then we go back into infinite campus, and change the unexcused absence to a technology concern.

PROPOSED INSTRUCTIONAL MODEL: Option E
All families have the option to stay virtual or choose a hybrid model.
In hybrid model, we look at  Monday through Thursday instruction and we will do this on a weekly rotating basis that we tried to mirror with schedule of a normal school day as much as we can so in a normal school day we don't use subject specific class we use transdisciplinary learning blocks that integrate all subject areas through the use of direct and then small group instruction. 

The students will be brought back into the building in 3 cohorts to allow for the teachers and student to acclimate to the new schedule, processes and safety measures. 
These cohorts and timing for returned was derived from the Intent to Return Survey. These are subject to change as we receive additional information from future surveys*.

Grade Levels: K, 1, 6 
Staff Return Date: 1/4
Student Return Date: 1/11

Grade Level: 2, 3, 7
Staff Return Date: 1/19
Student Return Date: 1/25

Grade Levels: 4, 5, 8
Staff Return Date: 2/1
Student Return Date: 2/8

• *Board's Suggestion: the school may consider including additional questions in the survey.

Due to the nature of instruction, MYP will execute a model that includes features of pod learning and hybrid learning in a manner that allows for student and staff flexibility. 

Since concurrent model is not ideal, the leadership team is exploring various technologies that would would allow for more efficient instructional model.*

Concurrent instructional model will not be implemented in PYP. 

• *Board's Request: please provide updates on how we can close the gap for the concurrent instructional model with the user of technology

To view the complete re-opening plan presentation, please visit. : https://app2.boardontrack.com/public/5YrtSZ/documents 

Evaluating staff's intent of return results.