LACEY – Parents went back to school virtually as part of a recently held, Parent University program that was designed to help them assist their children with their online learning.
During a recent Board of Education meeting, Superintendent Vanessa Clark spoke about the Parent University program which was held earlier this month.
“We had been talking about launching this for quite some time,” Clark said. The event was held virtually due to the coronavirus health crisis. The topic was “Navigating Remote Instruction Starting the Third Marking Period Strong.”
The program involved breakout sessions that assisted parents on how to better navigate through Google Classrooms which is the program Lacey students are using for remote learning. “That will help them to better assist students,” Clark said.
The breakout sessions were based on grade and involved 1, 2-4, 5-6, 7-8, and 9-12.
The concluding session involved how to navigate through the Parent Portal and where to go for technology support. “We know a lot of the e-mails we’ve been getting are about help in the Parent Portal,” Clark added.
“We’ve developed topics for future Parent University nights. We are going to try to have one every three weeks, minimally once a month. We’ll be rolling out those topics as well,” the superintendent said.
Clark also spoke about the Lacey Food Bank. She was happy to report that “all our schools under the leadership of our amazing principals, were instrumental in collecting food for the “Fill the Van” campaign in the past few months in addition to donating money to the Food Bank and provided tremendous support for Lacey community members who are in need.
“Not only do these projects help our community members but it also teaches our students about the importance of community service,” Clark said.
In the area of strategic planning, the superintendent reported to the Board and those watching the virtual meeting “it is hard to believe that a year ago we had just completed our strategic planning weekend that took place on March 6 and 7. The next step in the strategic planning process was to form action plan committees however but like most things in 2020, we were interrupted by COVID.”
She said action teams were formed and they would be responsible for developing plans for each of the three goal areas that were developed during last year’s planning weekend. The goal areas include learner success, facilities and finance, and outreach and engagement.
Clark said once the action plans were completed “we will present the plans to the full Strategic Plan group and we anticipate that to be sometime late April. We will be sending information out about that. That will form our five-year strategic action plan and that will be presented to the public at our June board meeting.”
She noted that when the district’s COVID-19 region changed from yellow to orange, schools temporarily went to full remote learning.
“This was due to the rise of community related cases and required quarantining due to individuals having COVID related symptoms. They are not our rules. We have to follow the rules that have been laid out for us in those guidelines,” Clark said.
Going from remote learning to live instruction and then back again “will provide a learning gap that we know is going to reveal itself when the pandemic is over,” she said.
“To address mental health we are forming a mental health social emotional health steering committee to put resources in place to address issues that will arise as we start to expand our attendance.”
She said that Board President Donna McAvoy was very passionate about this topic and would be a part of that committee.
“We already got started on that when we kicked off our Big Brothers, Big Sisters mentoring program. It was a huge success. Fifteen high school mentors were on the call and 15 Mill Pond School student mentees. The high school students are mentoring the Mill Pond students. The feedback from the parents has been fantastic,” Clark said.
Clark said she and Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction Stephen Decker took part in the kickoff meeting for that program. “It was so neat to watch the Mill Pond students and high school students interact with each other.”
“This will continue we have meetings going forward every other Tuesday for one hour. Meetings are facilitated by staff members, Big Brothers, Big Sisters. We will include the data from that in our steering committee,” Clark said.
