Dear South Orangetown Family,
The COVID-19 outbreak has been stressful and challenging for our families, our staff and our community. I understand and recognize your concerns and am committed to strengthening our home-school partnership. Our teachers have worked tirelessly to create high-quality distance learning lesson plans and are excited to begin once the State Education Department clarifies its expectations to ensure a fair and equitable delivery to all students.
These are confusing and unsettling times. To provide additional clarity and stability for our families, we have developed a list of frequently-asked questions regarding our school closure.
In the days ahead, we will continue to work with our families to ensure that our students are provided with the highest-quality education possible under the circumstances. Posted on each of our schools’ homepages are activities and resources that our teachers thoughtfully developed to keep students engaged in learning while they are at home:
- WOS Student Resources and Activities at http://blogs.socsd.org/wos/
- CLE Student Resources and Activities at http://blogs.socsd.org/cle/
- SOMS Student Resources and Activities at http://blogs.socsd.org/soms/
- TZHS Student Resources and Activities at http://blogs.socsd.org/tzhs/
At this point, we anticipate that the current school closure will be extended and plan to launch distance learning after March 30. In the meantime, I encourage you to visit the links above and have your children familiarize themselves with the materials that are available. This preparedness will contribute to their success once distance learning begins.
Our teachers and administrators have done a great job so far in diligently preparing for this new journey. They are excited to teach and our students are eager to learn. However, we must get this process correct before we embark on this distance learning adventure. We are going to be in this together for the long haul and I want to ensure that we are all adequately prepared to deliver and benefit from distance learning. We want this effort to be sustainable in the event that it becomes a long-term effort.
We, as a school community, are all doing our level-best to protect our students, our families, and ourselves from the threat of COVID-19. Trust is a powerful currency and I know that constant and clear communications will keep us strong. Please bear with us as we all navigate the challenges that lay ahead and I am confident that our collective efforts will provide a healthy and productive experience for our students.
Please take care of yourselves and your loved ones. It’s during difficult times like these that the true character of South Orangetown shines the most brightly.