Information from Don Lee, TUSD Trustee.
John Bailey, President
Southeast Torrance Homeowners’ Association, Inc. (SETHA)
We are planning for two options, full Distance Learning (all on-line) and a Social Distanced Option where K-5 would go to school half days (there would be a AM and PM cohort) everyday but Wednesday. Wednesday would be used for Teacher conferences and on-line activities with all of the kids, both those distance learning and those going to school at the site.
For Middle and High School they will go to school every other day with Wednesday being for Teacher conferences and school wide on-line activities. They will have a full Distance Learning option as well.
We are going to reach out to the Parents to have them sign up for one of the two options in the next week. Once we know what kids are going where we can then start to put together master schedules and see where we need to assign teachers.
We will probably wait until early August to decide if we need to go all Distance Learning for everyone or we can use both models we have put together. Either way they will stay in whatever group they have decided to be in so if its safe the kids that want to go to school will be allowed to go back.
The other issues we are working on is Day Care options for the K-5 and the Middle Schools. While TUSD is NOT in the day care business we are working with the YMCA to design child care around our AM/PM, Wednesday's off schedule and the Y is being very flexible. I think between the two of us we will have a solution that will work for the K-5 kids. Again the issue here is the unknown, if we do not open schools will the Y be able to adapt to the kids Distance Learning, again we are trying to work on this as well.
The Middle Schools have a program for after school activities that is run by the City of Torrance. I think the name is "After School Clubs" so with our every other day model that changes the time and duration of the Clubs. We are working with the City so these Clubs will be available to the Middle School kids, this is a work in progress.
All of this is subject to change at any moment, think back a month ago, it looked like we were going back to some sort of normal and now we are where we were in the middle of April. Will the new "lockdown" slow everything down and get us back where we were, lets hope. Then cold and flu season starts in October and that along with COVID-19 is going to be the next challenge. I think we might go back and forth between going to school and full on-line learning a few times in the coming school year, I hope not but TUSD will need to be flexible and we have the management team that can get this done.
So the short answer is its probably prudent to wait a couple of weeks before we decide if we need to go to full distance learning (but the parents have the choice of keeping the kids at home, we just need to know who wants to do this for planning) , I think LAUSD went to fast to on-line and Orange County's plan to go back to school full time with no social distancing is at opposite end of the spectrum.
One thing is certain, all of this will probably change as we move forward but TUSD's number one priority is the health and safety of ours kids, teachers, and employees and that will guide all future decisions.
Don Lee, School Board Trustee
Also from the TUSD WEBSITE:
We were thrilled that so many parents were interested in participating in yesterday’s session as we reached our maximum capacity of 500! We have doubled our Zoom attendance capability for future meetings so that we can accommodate up to 1,000 attendees. We hope even more parents can participate in our upcoming webinars.
If you were unable to attend the July 9 zoom session, you can watch the presentation by clicking here: https://youtu.be/iXSkLf6qnwA.
As a way to seek additional parent input, we have added a session for next week. The next Parent Information Session with Q and A will be on Thursday, July 16 at 10 am and 5 pm. The 10 am session will focus on elementary schools (TK-5) and the 5 pm session will focus on secondary schools (6-12). Parents are welcome to attend either session, however, the Q and A will be reserved for parents who have questions about the specific grade levels covered in the particular session.
Elementary Zoom link (Password: 034977) for 10 am:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81826797303?pwd=YStza2pWd081SE5FeTl0TG5pd1hHUT09
Secondary Zoom link (Password 05628) for 5 pm:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89296995333?pwd=NGF0cG92MjRkaklkSGNmL2V5K0gvZz09
Additionally, this week the District hosted a Board Workshop on July 8. If you were unable to attend that meeting, you can watch it here: https://youtu.be/-qpwdFW84y0
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