 This meeting is being recorded. Good evening. Welcome to the elementary parent guardian forum this evening. Thank you for everyone who has participating tonight and I can see already we have over 300 people who are participating in this evening's program. Thank you to everyone who submitted questions in the last few days. We've had over a hundred questions and what we needed to do like we did last week for the secondary forum was divide the questions by themes. And the panelists tonight who represent administrators and principals in the school system will be addressing each of these things. We realize that there might be questions that are follow up to some of the presentations and there also may not have had a chance to submit a question. So there is a function in the Zoom that allows you to write a question and we will address these probably the last half hour, 20 minutes of this evening. So it is at the bottom of your screen if you would like to see that opportunity for asking a question. So let me go to who is here this evening. We could move the slide. First of all, introduce myself. Dr. Kathleen Bodie, superintendent of schools with us this evening is also Dr. Roderick McNeil, junior. He will, we have a, I might have to scroll down a little bit to see all the people that are here. We have the following principals, the principal Bishop school, Mark McEnany, Brackett, Stephanie Zurcherkoff, Dallin, Badd-Digman, Hardy, Kate Parrots, Pierce, Karen Hartley, Stratton, Dr. Michael Hannah, Thompson, Karen Donato. Next slide please. In addition, we have some administrators from the district as well. We have Sarah Bird, who is the director of social emotional learning and school counseling. Allison Elmer, director of special education. We have Dr. Susan Bisson, who is the director of digital learning. And another principal we have is the principal of the Gibbs School, Christian DeFrancisco. And I think that I, and we also have two of our assistant principals of the elementary, Peggy Sassoulas and Erin Spinney. I think I have everyone, if I, so let me just, again, the format for this evening is that we're going to theme the questions and have an opportunity for different people to address these questions. We had a number of questions on social emotional learning, what's going to happen next year, summer. And so we have, you will see these questions as we move through tonight's program. Before we begin though, I want to acknowledge what an unprecedented and challenging time this has been for all of us. We've all had to learn how to adjust to new ways of living, working, communicating with each other, meeting. And for some of our younger students, this has been challenging with technology. All of our students in kindergarten, first grade and second grade have been used to working with iPads in school. And now they've been working on Chromebooks and they've also been introduced to Google Classroom virtually over the last few weeks. So it's been challenging. And I know that parents, this has been a very difficult time for you as you've also been working and trying to also support your children in the work that we're giving to them and trying to engage them in the learning that has started several weeks ago. But as we, as you know, we've moved into a new phase in the last week in which we are now advancing the curriculum. So without more comments from me, we're gonna move into some of the questions. Could we have the first slide? All right. So these are some of the district-wide themes that we learned from your questions. There was a lot of questions about asynchronous, synchronous learning, office hours, emails. There was questions about the district PD, including anything with the G Suite apps such as classroom forms, calendar sites, tools for video creation and digital resources. The next slide, please. I think we've moved further down the slides. What is, can we go back to the first question in the terms of the themes? All right. Well, maybe what I should do at this point, I think that the first question has to do with social-emotional learning. And I would ask who is going to be speaking to this question to pose the question and begin your response. Great. That would be me. So hello, everybody. We're so happy to have you join us this evening. I know I can speak for my colleagues when I say that we recognize how much of a change this has been for all of us and that we're certainly very appreciative of all the time and energy and effort that has also now been added to the plates of parents during all of this. So I am happy to be here and we are all happy to be here to answer your question. So I am going to speak to the first theme which we had noticed in some of the questions, which was how were the schools supporting the social and emotional wellbeing of our students? And in that, I could speak a little bit to what I know is happening at the elementary level with our school social workers. I can certainly know for sure that our social workers are reaching out to our vulnerable students. We know that they are working on securing much needed resources, anything from food, resources in terms of paper, pencils, utilities that students are needing at home. I also know that they are working with families to connect them, not only with resources within our schools, but also with resources outside of our schools in terms of connecting with places like Arlington Youth, the Counseling Center, as well as Walker Community Counseling and the Child Mind Institute. I also know that our social workers are working with our grade level teams and joining their class meetings. I know highlights of their day has been being able to join the class meetings with their colleagues. I think we all feel that way. The most important thing that we find that we're doing is connecting with our students and our families. And that certainly brings us the most joy these days. Our social workers are also teaming up with outside providers as well as other resources within the building, our EL teachers, our reading interventionists. They are working collaboratively with everyone to make sure that we're supporting our students in that way. I was recently on a grid for I think it was an upper grade and I found a video from a social worker and she was really walking students through some of the mindful activities that we often practice in our schools each day. She was walking them through some mindful breathing techniques and as well as some of the strategies that we use for students when they're feeling overwhelmed and anxious. So I was so happy to see that some of those videos have been put out there for our families to access and our students to access as well. On the enrichment website through the APS homepage, there's a tab dedicated for parents and for students and it has some resources there, such as the mental health and online resources and the wellbeing website, which I know has been something that is being accessed as well. As a parent of two boys in school, I certainly feel the pain of so many of you as well. I can run a building of 600 people but yet I can't get my own fifth grader to log on to Dreambox some days. So there are definitely challenges that I am right there experiencing with all of you. What I find is most helpful and I think when I'm joining classes or I'm trying to work with our staff on ways to support our students, what I find is most helpful is just meeting the kids where they are and having those conversations with them and trying to work through some of the kinks that we know that they're experiencing and reassuring them that at the end of all this and that they will be okay, we will be okay and that when we are back together again, whenever that may be, we will certainly meet them where they are and work together to move them along on their own continuum. I reiterate that all the time and I know my colleagues do as well that at the end of the day, what matters is that our students feel connected, that they feel as though their teachers are still there for them and that they can still connect with one another. I find also another resource just parent to parent is that I've been scheduling some Zoom calls for my own kids or some hangouts for my own kids to stay connected with their friends. It's certainly a new way of trying to stay connected but I find even though there's some anxiety around even getting on the class calls, I find once my kids are on them, they are happy and they connect with their teacher and their friends and that's certainly something that I know has been a huge asset in our family as well. I know Sarah Bird is also on the call and she may have some additional comments about some of the things that are happening beyond what I've expressed. So Sarah, I'm gonna toss it over to you, see if there's anything you'd like to add. Sure, Karen, thank you, that was beautiful. Yeah, I believe that Mrs. Donato said so much of what's going on in all of our buildings and all of our social workers come with their own box of tricks and tools and strategies and their own backgrounds and training. So I do know that as soon as school closed, that was one of the first things that all of our counselors and social workers were doing were identifying students and families who were definitely identified with preexisting mental health conditions and folks who we need to follow up with and aggressively make sure that they have what they need given our current circumstances. But not only that, also following up with every single student kids who are usually thriving and just knowing that in these circumstances with chronic stress that is prolonged, unpredictable and severe, 80s and adverse childhood experience, it does impact how our brains function, even for the adults. I was saying to a group of staff the other day who's ordered something ridiculous online and thought back later and said, oh my gosh, that must have been when I was working from my stressed out brain. So working with our staff and really trying to see what we can do to support our kids, even if we think they're thriving in this remote learning environment and how can we enrich the kids who need a bit more to think their teeth into and make them feel like they're really being pushed and connected to their community. And then how do we support the kids that are really struggling to log on and feel connected and can't even begin to think about work? So just to further on what Karen said, in all of the buildings in the districts now, we have the wonderful grids that have come out. And the benefit to that is that every single student across the district pre-K through fifth grade has the same exact social emotional learning lessons and resources being provided to them. I'm sure many of you parents have seen them over the past few weeks, but even they get ready to connect and learn activities are really conducive to brain science and regulation and how do you work through that chronic stress I was talking about using music and movement, nature, breath, all these different great things to get kids moving and in their bodies and working with their strengths to then get them ready to connect with their peers and their teachers. So playworks, recess, mindfulness, physical activities, the SEL lessons, whether they're open circle, mindful schools, second step, loads of resources available, as Karen mentioned, all of the enrichment activities too on the APS website. So there's a lot that's coming out and social workers and counselors are continuing to offer enrichment through social thinking, zones of regulation and all of the tools of the mind for the kindergartners and for all the other programs that are out there. Thanks Karen. Thank you. Thank you, both of you. We've started with this area, this theme of questions because we feel so strongly as a district that this is the most important thing that we can be doing right now is supporting our students as they move through this experience. And we know that there's a lot of challenges with it, but the connection to their teachers, their fellow students, their families is paramount during this time. As we move into the more academic, I'd like to ask Dr. McNeil, if he would just give a brief overview of our remote learning plan as it has evolved, we're in our third phase of this school closure. And then we'll be moving into some other specific questions that have been asked over the last few days. Thank you. Dr. McNeil. Thank you, Dr. Boveley. Ken, can we have the first slide that's entitled district-wide themes? Can we go back to that slide to begin with? So I do wanna comment on some of the major highlights of the district-wide remote learning plan as we move into this next phase. So we are moving forward in the curriculum as recommended by the state. And the goal for the remote learning plan at this particular point in time is to focus on specific key understandings that were not covered throughout the year up until March 13th. And the key understandings that we have selected to which we're aligning our lessons are those specific key understandings that are critical to move students to the next level in their learning. Also in an alignment with the state, we're using asynchronous videos created by teachers and our coaches throughout the district to focus on direct instruction. So those videos, and the reason why we're using the asynchronous video format is so that there's a focus on equity. We want to make sure that we are providing various videos that students can access at their own convenience because we know that the different situations in each one of the households of our families is different. So we want to make sure that we're honoring that those differences and supplying the direct instruction to support our lessons that students can access at any time throughout the day. The synchronous video formats, we are highly encouraging our instructional staff, teachers and other support personnel to make at least two contacts with students throughout the week. And we're highly encouraging that one of those contacts is a synchronous live video session. And the focus for those synchronous live video sessions is to connect with students. And as Ms. Bird and Ms. Donato spoke about the, making sure that we're focusing on the social and emotional wellbeing of our students. So we are encouraging our staff to do that through the synchronous videos at least once a week. We're also encouraging staff to hold office hours and to make sure that they're replying or responding to students and parents using email in real time. So we know, we understand that some of our students, especially in the upper grades, might have questions about the assignments that they've been given. And we're asking teachers to please make sure that they're checking their emails twice a day. And quite often our teachers are checking their emails more than that, but we're making sure that they're understanding that they have to respond to students and families in real time. So the office hours are there for students to connect with their teachers so they can ask questions about the assignments. And those are also scheduled throughout the week. So we're trying to put together a comprehensive plan so that teachers and support personnel can maintain consistent contact with our students. I'm going to now ask Dr. Susan Bisson to talk about the various professional development that we're offering to our staff. Cause we do realize at this particular point in time in our remote learning plan and because of the situation that we're in with the distance learning that we have had to have a focus on technology and providing various ways to support our instructional staff with the knowledge and the resources that will allow us to connect with our students in a digital format. We have the next slide, please. So we can stay on this if Dr. Bisson can go ahead. Could we advance to slide seven? Thank you. Hello everyone. I will apologize in advance if my dog begins barking. She's very vigilant about anyone who approaches the house even if they're not very close. So first, before I describe if we could advance to the next slide before I describe what we're doing in terms of supporting our teachers and staff in the district. I'd just like to say the word resilience comes to mind when I think of this these many weeks now that we've been in school closure. Our group, which consists of the digital learning specialists at the elementary, middle and high school, the digital learning teachers who are in each of the school buildings are librarians at the elementary and high school level as well as our assistive technology specialist who has been part of our group as well. We have really learned an incredible amount and I feel like everyone really should be recognized for the amazing job they've done. As I'm sure all of you know from trying to manage remote learning at home there is a lot to it. Oftentimes the technology doesn't do exactly what we think it will do and we are getting constant feedback. We're incorporating that feedback into our professional development. We're creating new professional development for people based on trying to make sure teachers and staff have strategies for using particularly Google Classroom and Google Meet. So with that said, we have focused on our core G Suite apps which include Classroom, Meet which is also sometimes referred as Hangouts or Hangouts Meet. Google has had a name change recently. Google Form, Forms, Calendar and Sites. We're also focused on tools for creation, video creation and we're including digital resources for collaboration and a couple of examples of that are Jamboard and Padlet. If we could go to the next slide, please. And just to give you a sense of how many people, sorry, the next two slides up, it says digital literacy, professional development. Here is just some numbers for you to look at in terms of how many people we have had participating since the end of March in our digital literacy workshops, our professional development. It is quite astounding the numbers and we are continuing to run sessions, multiple sessions weekly and we'll continue to do so until we switch toward the end of May into really planning for whatever may come our way in the fall, thank you. Dr. Duncan, will I just pick this up? So if we go to the slide show, we can advance the slide. If you could put the slide show back up and then we can move on to the next theme that does conclude my comments on the asynchronous and synchronous learning and then Dr. Bissen just finished talking about the professional development. So here we are, we talked about the SEL so we can go to the next slide. This is, well I think that we wanted to also talk a little bit about the advantages a little bit more because that question was certainly asked several times, more than several times in the question and answer. And I don't know if Dr. Hanna wanted to speak to that a little bit more. I don't know about the advantage of asynchronous learning. Okay. I would, yeah. Thank you so much, Dr. McNeil, Dr. Bode and everyone for showing up. For those of you who don't know me, I'm Michael Hanna, Principal of Stratton Elementary. There's a lot of unexpected kind of silver linings, I guess that we might be able to find in this really challenging time and being able to get some face time with other schools' principals and families. I hope we all can see that that's one of those in this meeting tonight. So I've been asked to speak a little bit just from a leadership perspective about the different advantages of both synchronous and asynchronous learning function either designed or led by your teachers. To start, just the methods of asynchronous remote learning, this can be self-guided lessons designed by the teacher teams, streaming video content of either the teacher or another expert, slide presentations, voiceover content. There's a virtual and digital books. Excuse me. There's posted elements to classroom. There's all those asynchronous exchanges across discussion boards. I think we all have a notion of all the things that we've been designing asynchronously. And as Dr. McNeil mentioned, the advantages of this method include the flexibility, the pacing and the equity of access. Asynchronous content allows for the maximum flexibility across the wide range of family circumstances. And I just want to pause on that for a moment and remark on how much the diversity, excuse me again, of our families has come to the foreground for all of us working in schools these days. I've realized myself that the common experience of a common school house is a really enormous unifier. And that we started the school year with one environment for 458 children. And now we have 458 environments for 458 children. So regarding the synchronous meeting with teachers and their students, we make sure that this happens once a week and many classrooms try to do it more. But we notice that each family is challenged differently with having this happen. And we're really beginning to be able to make some generalizations about how the children in each grade level are challenged developmentally in doing this. So as any of you present when these hangouts happen can verify, but generally speaking, the younger children cater to, it's both working with the technology but also the unique executive functioning skills it takes to make a hangout effective and not just frustrating. And then for older students, it's the challenge to a lot of times convince them to regularly engage and participate. So just as a final note on the synchronous learning, as practitioners, we've realized something that probably should have been obvious, but we're really learning it now that to run a classroom all day long requires just a huge set of verbal and nonverbal teacher moves that just can't be replicated online perfectly. Although we are continuing to stretch our skill set growth and see what new teacher moves we need to respond to the unique challenges of synchronous learning and we'll continue to over the next five and a half weeks to get more of those synchronous meetings going where we can find room for families to engage them. So thank you very much for allowing me to speak to that topic from a leadership perspective. I'm sorry, I pushed the wrong button. Can you, you can hear me now? Yes. Okay. Another thing that came up in the questions that we received was a question about connectedness. In fact, there's two, two questions. And the first of these is what does communication with students and staff look like and sound during the week? Thank you, Dr. Bode. I've been asked to speak to this one as well. It kind of obviously connects to the idea of synchronous learning versus asynchronous learning. And I just want to, you know, in talking about what it is that students and staff are doing during the week, during the day, I just want to start off by saying a little bit of my own perspective. And I just think it's relevant to mention that I teach and have a leadership position with a couple of universities at leadership programs. So I've been able to connect with principals from around the Commonwealth on the topic of programming during remote learning. And I have to say there is a unique level of really high quality programming that's happening in Arlington during this time. And there's some areas that I want to highlight about that. The first is just a, I think a unique level of collaboration happening among all elementary schools, the leadership, the faculty, and including a strong collaboration with the Arlington Education Association. I've seen over these two months that all of the meetings, emails, texts late and into the weekend sharing of resources has really helped to maintain not only great programming but a really high morale that's really essential for that programming to be impactful. The learning plan, I don't know if many people know this but the learning plan for each grade across the district that's distributed to families on Sunday night, this represents an enormous amount of expert design work and really skillful leadership from Dr. Bodie and Dr. McNeil to corral all of the various stakeholders to get that together. They've designed a framework where there's representation from every school in every discipline in every grade to design each grid to be launched on Tuesday and then fleshed out and fought over until it's launched on Sunday. And this is all happening while the whole thing is being individualized for every unique learning need in the district in special education, ELL, reading, intervention, math. And I just want to say again, this is all being done by teachers and students who have never used Google Classroom as a teaching environment before eight weeks ago. So the breadth and the depth of the learning tasks are really closely aligned with the curriculum that happens during a regular school year. And again, it's all happening thanks to faculty who've never taught through recorded video ever before. And I just want to say that as a principal we are in Google Classrooms every day, including hangouts and the following week design meetings. We're really proud of the level that the faculty are doing everything they can to make this time as enriching as possible for the children. And I just want to say one last thing that all this design work is happening while the instructional week is happening at the same time. So we're anticipating the next week while doing this week. And I'm hopeful that there's as strong an effort as possible to have as timely response to parents as we can. And this happens on and off Google Classroom. But I know my principal colleagues and I would request that you reach out to your child's principal if anytime you feel like there's any kind of communication disconnect with teachers. But we would also ask of course that you remember that a large majority of our teachers have family and child demands that are exactly the same as what you're all facing as well. So thank you very much for a moment to talk a bit about what communication with students and staff looks and sounds like during the week. Thank you very much. And I do have to commend everyone. The effort, the team effort across the whole district has been rather exceptional. We have another question that's come forward in different ways and that is professional development. Are staff receiving professional development technology? And I think that this question has already been sort of asked and answered. But I don't know if there's any principle who would like to add any comments to this. So professional development that may be posing that been challenging for teachers. Oh, go ahead, Mark. I can speak to that a little bit. You know, I just want to say good evening. It's Mark McEnany from the Bishbell Elementary School. I need to give a big shout out to the IT department, Dr. Bissen and her crew for being so responsive with the professional development needs that have risen up as it relates to the remote learning environment that we find ourselves in. And it's not only Susan and her team that are providing the professional development. We have digital learning liaisons at each elementary school who are doing a fabulous job connecting with staff in the individual buildings. We also have people that are just more confident with technology and they're ensuring the others up. We're working really hard to connect with those individuals who might not be as comfortable with technology. And it's really exciting to see a staff member kind of step up and say, oh, I know how to do this. And during a faculty meeting when we do shareouts as far as just exposing one another to the different platforms and technology that's out there for our use to make our use easier, more efficient and user friendly. Depending on the age. And so everyone has come together to help each other out. I thank Dr. Bissen and her team for help leading the charge and empowering others to kind of take the leads within their schools to make professional development happen. And it comes daily. We face different issues and desires to use different platforms and there's always someone to lean on. So the professional development and the way that it's been structured has been kind of a triage at the beginning. And now we can become more proactive as we look at professional development, as we look at a potential extension of our remote learning experience with the fall being uncertain. So great job, Dr. Bissen. And if any of you at home have any questions regarding technology, I would recommend starting with the principles. We might be able to answer what you have and if not, we'll be able to push that to Dr. Bissen. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. McEnany. All right, we're on slide nine now and another theme that came up in the questions. What it's about student support. What does support look like to students who receive specialized instruction? What is in place for our English language learners? And that would be my section of the presentation this evening. Thank you, Dr. Bode. My name is Kate Parrots. I'm the principal at Hardy Elementary School. And thank you all for being here looking at the numbers of participants on my screen is telling me 476, it's a dedicated group. And I wanna say before I start that we really do appreciate all of the feedback and all of the questions that you have shared with us. I think that this is certainly a difficult process and going through this, the collaborative efforts that have gone on behind the scenes with all of our different departments have been really incredible, but your feedback is helpful because we are constantly working to evolve and perfect our programming as we go for our students. And I think one of the reasons why I think it's important that we say that is that we do consider in special education and in all of our different ways in which we support students that we are teams and that families certainly are members of those teams. A lot of the questions that we got this evening were around issues of special education. However, there are many, many ways that students are supported and several of them have been mentioned already within math, within reading. I'll talk a little bit about English language learners in a moment, but we also have, in addition to special education, collaborations and supports through our MECCO program through AYCC and other social emotional supports that were mentioned earlier when we talked about SEL. But so the question of how special education students are being serviced at the moment is that our students with IEPs have been receiving remote learning from special educators and have for many weeks been receiving those services. Our special educators work to create remote learning plans and those are in place and special educators are meeting with students as well as related service providers. Those learning opportunities in special education are consistent with the offerings of the general education population and plans and they focus on essential standards and skills and our special education students are working through those IEPs towards very specific goals. This is a big thing, right? It means a lot to get those supports and those plans are critically important. And so if you have any questions and concerns about that and many of the questions that we received were very specific to individual students, we really would like you to reach out to your teachers, special education liaisons and our special education coordinators at the elementary level. Now, having said that, one of the questions had to do with assessments. So during this time evaluations while school is not in session are not continuing. And some people ask some questions about the kinds of assessments that could happen through this remote environment. And since the closure, some standardized test publishers have released some protocols for remote testing. However, we do have concerns over the validity of these measures. And so that is something that we would take very seriously to consider before we put that into place. Again, it becomes a very case by case basis when we make those decisions about how to proceed. So you should ask those questions of your school and certainly your building principle is a good resource in that way. Moving forward, I think it's really important to know that this is a time of uncertainty for us as well. There were questions that you asked about extended school year, summer services and the supports that are in place for programs like title one. This is undecided. I mean, at this time, we're waiting for our governor's decisions. There are decisions that need to be made about lifting this current stay at home order. And so we are awaiting that guidance from the state in order to help us with those decisions. But hopefully, hopefully they'll be made soon. I know we're all waiting for that. But the short answer to that question is if those orders are lifted and we can put those plans into place that students on IEPs, if it is on their IEP will be entitled to those services. I think that moving forward, we should think about making sure that everyone understands, however, that there are many ways to be connected and supported within the schools. And if during the school year, you were someone who received supports from a particular service provider that that should continue. And I'd like to read something that was shared with me about English learner education. And this department continues to work in partnerships with families to find ways to support students that will differ from traditional classroom interactions. The ELE department continues to focus on the holistic needs of our learners and families, one by maintaining connections between school staff and students and families, and two, providing equitable access to all remote learning activities, and three, promoting the safety and wellbeing of students and our families. During this time of school closure, the EL teachers have developed a remote learning EL schedule that allows for the continued support of language development or our ELLs and in all grade levels. EL teachers are also providing language development support to their specific individual ELE groups. Our EL teachers continue to reach out to our families for the social-emotional needs of our students and families checking in about interpreting and translation services and requests, as well as providing connections to resources needed for our families. Nothing can replace the in-person schooling experience. So please reach out for any support that is needed for your child and or your family. Please do not hesitate to ask us for support. And I think just in closing at this time, I really would like to say that there are many, many ways for children to get support within our school systems and these hangouts and these times to have connection are happening with many educators. So don't forget about that PE and health teacher. Don't forget about that music or that art teacher or that paraprofessional in the library. Those Google classrooms exist there for your connection and support as well. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Barrett. So the last theme, well, actually it's one of the last things was student progress. Will there be progress reports in June and will my child be retained? And I believe Mr. Digman. That's me. Good evening, everybody. That's Digman Dallin Elementary. Thanks for being here with us tonight. I think that's a question that has come up quite a bit both practically and from a place of concern and worry. And I wanna, before I read a prepared statement just about this, I wanna make sure that it's clear and well understood. I do want to make sure that everybody knows how much we appreciate the efforts that parents are putting in right now to partner with our teachers. Particularly for our elementary age students, the level of independence that they're able to have is dramatically and drastically different than students in the secondary. Coupled with this increase in the amount of technology and digital literacy that we're asking from our students, it's a really big job. And I know I greatly appreciate it. So what we've heard from our families is that students who are doing really well in this current model of home learning require abundant resources and parental support. We also know that this is not a universal condition for all families and students. And so with this in mind, we are not going to be issuing traditional progress reports at the end of the final school trimester. So we've heard from many families that they're still sharing devices. They're struggling with access. We have siblings that are taking care of each other and providing a childcare that's needed while adults are working. We know we have many families that are limited by the languages that are spoken at home and there's countless other barriers that are the result of this coronavirus school closure. So we also know that from the science of learning, the brains and stress negatively impact cognition and performance. So put simply, many students are not learning under the optimal conditions that a caring classroom community provides. So grades right now cannot accurately represent what our students have learned and would be impossibly incomplete from many, many, many children right now. So we're currently looking at options to provide families with information about this phase of remote learning that began on May 4th. So this will include an overview of the essential standards and the content that has been introduced in each grade level. So their families are aware of access to that. We will also develop a way for our families to access the asynchronous lessons and the content that's been developed by our teachers and curriculum teams. This will allow families who have expressed a desire to revisit content or to explore content that they weren't able to get to simply because of the circumstances and schedules at home, the option to do so in a way that works for them. And although I will say that as educators of young children, and many of us parents of young children, we encourage our families to choose the emotional wellness of their children as your continued priority. So a related question that has come up is around placement and retention. So as a district, we're aligning with guidance from the state to not retain students related to their progress during the school closure. Instead, we're going to plan the necessary curriculum changes in each grade level with continued guidance from the state. So we expect this to include more direction on essential standards across all levels in our district. And this will need to be reflected in our curriculum mapping. Also related to questions around assessment and a year and start of your assessment, particularly with beginning of the year assessment. Thankfully, this is a pretty common practice in all our elementary schools, where we always have a plan to look at our students' reading and math profiles, for example. And we know that the early curriculum work in each grade level informs our teachers about their students as learners, helps us create likability groups across subject areas. And then I would say also as a district, this year and going forward, we've been actively revising our assessment plans by each grade level to better form our instructions, something that's represented in our district goals and would continue on, even if we hadn't been on this particular moment in time. You know, and I think our students are also fortunate in our staff to work in a district that values coaching. We've coaches in all our schools to support instruction and curriculum implementation. We have interventionists that are there to support a range of students in the classroom and out, learning specialists in each of our school who share their expertise and are there for children who are at risk. Impair professionals who play a critical role in supporting the classroom and providing teachers the opportunity to work in small group settings, even within classrooms with more children. So, you know, I think we all can very much relate to the concern around the progress that's being made right now. And I just want to circle back and remind us all to be aware that we're not able at this point to really equitably provide that optimal environment for all kids. And we certainly do not want to hold this against our students. This obviously has nothing to do with their willingness to participate in this one, well, to some degree. Rod, and I don't like Dr. McNeil if you want to add to that at all. I get my mute button. No, I think you covered it in a very comprehensive manner so I don't have anything else to add. So we move on to the last, there were a lot of questions about summer plans in the district and what would we expect for a physical re-entry in the fall? Let me take the question of school, summer school this summer or all of our other programs that we have and we have many. We have Summer Fund, which we have now over a thousand registrations for. We have some special education programs during the summer. We also have camps and all of these programs are waiting to find out whether we would be able to have some physical presence to have these camps and these other programs. At the moment, it does not appear that that is probably going to be the case. We will look and see over the next couple of weeks and have some firm plans and messages about this. But at the moment, we are planning an alternative way of looking at this, which would be in a virtual environment. And we will be back in touch with more information about this. But we don't see right now the possibility of having, for example, the Summer Fund and students coming into the Addison Middle School for some of the programming. So the Community Education Department is working on some virtual alternatives. We will, for those families that would be, their child would be in a special education program this summer, the department will be in touch with you as well over the next few weeks. So right now we're planning for more of a virtual environment for the summer. Perhaps that will change and we'll know more probably by the end of May to have definite plans. If we go to the question about next year, and I think maybe this might have been the question that was asked the most often, is what will happen next year? And the answer is we don't know really quite yet. There are a lot of daunting hurdles to have and we're certainly doing a lot of discussing and planning. We will have committees within the district at different levels to plan for what next year could look like. I mean, for those of you that are entering, having entering kindergarten students, this year we would have had screenings done in June. Those will be deferred to the fall. There are, it's a topic that we're talking about. We're talking about that also at the daily emergency leadership management team meetings as to what that could possibly be. So I know that we're all anxious to have some certainty about this, but at this time we don't know. It's going to depend a lot on guidance from our governor in terms of what kind of physical contact we have. We were to maintain six feet in social distancing. We would have to think about a different kind of day than we have now because there is no room in a classroom to maintain that for the number of students that are there. So there are a lot of very practical things that we have to consider and also how to make the environment safe, both for parents to feel good about sending their child to school and for our staff to feel safe in that environment as well. So what I can tell you at this point is that there is much discussion that is going on about this and they'll be planning and as we probably will have another form later, if not the end of probably early June sometime to have some more discussion, answer questions when we have a little more certainty about what next year could look like. So I can see from the Q and A we have up to 45 questions that have already been submitted. And Dr. McNeil is going to be reading the questions. Some of them may be sort of duplicates too or themed. And I would ask those of you that are here if you would like to take that question or Dr. McNeil direct the question to someone that would be very, that'd be helpful. Thank you. Do you wanna begin with the questions? Yes. If you wanted to, just like we did in the secondary forum I'm also happy to speak to the social emotional concerns cause I know a lot of the questions about returning in the fall result really came around not just the logistics, but also just how do we, how do I prepare my child for return and myself? So just wanted to let folks Why don't you talk about that right now? Yeah, so just to dovetail what you were just speaking about absolutely many, many of you all mentioned that this is a big concern along with the previous questions about academics. And so we just wanted to reassure you all that as Dr. Bodie mentioned, yes, we're waiting to hear a lot of information in terms of the Department of Public Health and so on. However, regardless of what the physicality is and the logistics are, we can assure you that the underpinning caring for the social emotional health and wellbeing of the students, of the families that are sending the students and of the staff that are responsible for creating the safe spaces for them is going to be there regardless of what the logistics are. And we have been hard at work ensuring that those plans are in place long before logistics ever hit the ground running. So we can't ever be in a place thinking about how to make spaces work if people are not yet feeling safe about what that would entail. We've partnered with a lot of really great organizations. They're putting out wonderful guidance on how to go about doing that. And Arlington has a really long history of partnering with less the university and building trauma-sensitive schools, training over a hundred staff members on how to build those practices and bring them into their classrooms. So we are hard at work making sure that that happens. As we move along, you will be sure to hear from us because in broad strokes, the first few steps are listening sessions to hear from families, to hear from students, to hear from our own staff as well. What do you all need to make sure that when you come back, this is really a safe and supportive learning environment. As Mr. Digman said, when we are not feeling safe, we are not learning and we're not working at our best capacity. And so we need to make sure that we've secured that safety, not just from the physical plant side of things, but also from the mental place of it. Otherwise, our brains aren't ready to learn. So I just wanted to reassure folks that we are hard at work on that and we will be in touch with you sooner rather than later in terms of our next steps. And if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out. Thank you very much. Dr. McNeil, do you wanna begin with some of the questions? Yes, thank you, Dr. Bodie. So the first question, so I just wanna let all of our participants know that the way that the questions are divided up in the Q and A is we have open questions. Those are questions that have not received a written response. And then we have the answered questions. And so participants have written questions into the platform. And then as we have been progressing through our discussion, our panelists have been taking on some of those questions and answering them in written form. So the first open question that has not been answered comes from Mary Beth Wilkes. And the question is, my question is especially pertinent for the rising sixth graders. What are APS's plans for building community and connection for this cohort? What plans do you have to mitigate anxiety when school resumes at a new to them school? And so I'm gonna direct this question to Kristen, who was the current principal of the Gibbs School. Thank you, Dr. McNeil. I had a feeling you were gonna direct that question toward me. You know it was coming. I knew it was coming. Good evening, everyone. My name is Kristen DeFrancisco. I am currently the principal of the sixth grade Gibbs School. And before I begin and answer that question, I, you don't know how much it means to me to be included in this company this evening. I have worked very closely with all of these administrators when I was the principal at Hardy and feel very blessed that Kate is taking over there and Peggy is, you know, holding up the ships, staring that ship. I can tell you that in the secondary level, we stand on the shoulders of giants. I mean that, I mean that sincerely. You are very lucky to have this group of people working with your children. They are trying to figure out how they transition kids from K all the way up to five. It is quite a feat to be able to do it. And so to be able to be here tonight and speak with them really is an honor for me. There's, I'm sure so many fifth grade families sitting out there listening right now. And I'm going to assure you that the transition to Gibbs will be wonderful. Your kids are in for a treat. This school has been, you know, such a wonderful gift to Arlington. I think having a sixth grade only school where we can focus on what kids are going through during the sixth grade transition has just been great. I'm pleased with how these first two years have gone. And I know the third year is going to be just as wonderful. So what do we have in place? You know, I've been thinking a lot about the foundations we put in place in Arlington. And I'm going to speak toward that social emotional piece just like Sarah just did many of my colleagues did because that's going to be what's really important in these first four weeks of school as your sixth graders come up to Gibbs. Typically what we do is I go around and I visit all the elementary schools when I only got to four before we had to, you know, shut down or COVID kind of interfered with progress there. But here's what we are going to do instead. So we will be setting up a forum for parents. As a matter of fact, you probably already have the information out in an email from me about that. So next Wednesday evening, same time, same channel it's going to be on the 20th. It will be at seven o'clock. Wendy Salvatore, who's the assistant principal at Gibbs and myself, we've put together a panel of people to answer some questions. You should have gotten a survey today out through email that you can, you know, similar to the survey you probably filled out for this evening, you can ask some questions that we'll be ready to answer. We've got some teachers that are gonna join us. We have some curriculum directors that are going to join us. And this would take the place of an in-person forum which is something we have run every single year. So we're prepared to do that and we're looking forward to doing that. We are also working on some really great videos that are coming out to kids. So those videos are gonna be tours of the building. It's going to be some guest stars from the exploratory learning community which is art, music and PE and facts and digital media literacy and all of those new things that kids get to take while their teachers are actually putting together some videos right now that will help kids put names and faces together and sort of get to meet them virtually which we're really looking forward to doing. In addition to that, we've got some sixth graders on board who are willing to do some videos for us and talk a little bit to the incoming fifth graders about what it's going to be like. Gibbs has set up so nicely for this when they do arrive in the fall because we have a fully functioning operational advisory curriculum. And our advisory which is so important under normal circumstances is gonna be even more important now as we're moving kids back into school that have had a break from this traditional learning, what we call traditional learning. So our staff right now is getting that curriculum ready to go. We're taking what we have. We're tweaking it a little bit. Sarah Bird has been working with our faculty. She comes to our meetings. We've got some really nice choice boards for our current sixth graders which I know will be morphing into some really great choice boards for our fifth graders. So rest assured, I know it's a scary transition without COVID coming in to kind of add a little bit of another layer to it but I am very confident that your fifth graders is gonna feel welcome. They're going to feel excited about the transition. They're gonna enjoy meeting all of the kids from the seven elementary schools. Gibbs was built on innovation and we're certainly not gonna stop innovating now so we will have a handle on this for sure. I look forward to seeing many of you or at least talking to you virtually next week on Wednesday. Rod. Thank you very much, Kristen. So the next question, and please forgive me if I don't say your name correctly, your last name, but it's Lilia Benchetrit. And I think Dr. Bote, this question could, this would be a question for you. Why isn't there more being done to have active Zoom classes every day such as done regularly in other school districts such as New Hampshire and New York and in the private schools? Well, this might actually, I can answer it but if there's more detail, we can actually ask Susan Bisson. We have looked at this issue from the very beginning because actually some of our teachers had begun using Zoom. Our concern with Zoom has been its privacy. They have been working on that for quite a while and is improving. We know that that's improving but so has the platform that we are using as part of our Google Suite, which is the Hangout Meet. Some of the features that Zoom had initially that now exist in the Google Hangout is, for example, the grid. So everyone can see each other. That is now part of Hangout. But there's another issue that still hasn't been resolved and there are technical issues in terms of malware that we're aware of. So yes, I understand some school districts have moved into the use of Zoom. We are using Zoom this evening and with teachers in the district, we both use Zoom and Hangout. Meetings are outside the district. We're using different kinds of platforms, Webex, Zoom and there's one other one. I'm trying to think of the name of it. But with students, we would want to err on the side of caution. We also want to have some uniformity in the district and since the Hangout, which is part of our learning suite, is available and has the sufficient functions that we need, we've decided just to stay with that platform. And I would ask Dr. Bissen if you would want to add anything to that. No, Dr. Rode, I think you said it well. The security issues are a real concern, not only in our district, but I know other districts as well. And Google Meet is within our spy ponders or available to students in our spy ponders domain and is an easier app for students to engage with currently. Thank you. Could I speak to this a little bit? Dr. Bode? Absolutely. Thanks very much. Yeah, we definitely gave a good vetting of Zoom and I know that some districts and some places have elected to use that platform. But I wonder if maybe some of the question is actually not totally about the platform but just about the frequency of synchronous learning. And there is certainly an argument to be made for doing more of that. The research bears out that there's some real upside in value for doing synchronous learning. We are following direction both from the state and also aligning with our neighboring districts and having a priority on asynchronous direct instruction from children's teachers for all the reasons that we mentioned. Again, we are continuing to add synchronous opportunities as much as we can. But in order to ensure sort of an equitable experience and having that as a priority is really what's driving this. And reasonable people can have a disagreement with that, I'm sure. But we have really thrown our weight behind designing learning that is aligned with our curriculum. And I am curious about really long sessions of synchronous teaching and learning between teachers and students and how the quality endures and something like that. As I mentioned in my brief remarks before, we're noticing that children have a significant challenge in remaining engaged in synchronous learning events. And to simply do more, I don't think would get them more engaged or make that a more effective platform necessarily. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Hannah. So the next question is for Dr. Bissen. And maybe principals can also chime in as it relates to managing student behavior during the asynchronous video. So this one comes from Flynn Monks. Do you have suggestions on how to keep younger kids engaged in watching the asynchronous videos or slideshows? Both parents in my first graders house work full-time and it's very difficult to get him to watch instructional videos without supervision. He also has a hard time staying focused watching them and tends to run away and pout when we ask him to watch them. Understandably, there are nowhere near as engaging as a real classroom and also I think make it all the more present for him that he's not in the normal school environment which brings up all sorts of negative emotions. So I'm gonna ask maybe a principal, do you want to respond to this? I'd be happy to answer that one. Okay. So I feel like there is absolutely no question that this is challenging for many of our students and our families, therefore, after that. And that having that ability to work with a teacher is something that feels like it would be important in that moment. And I think that the connection with the teacher is still there even in this environment even if they're not the ones who are delivering that instruction. And so when I have been talking to families about these kinds of challenges, the kinds of questions that I've been asking are, what is it that's working for your child during this time? Let's pinpoint those highlights of what's happening that's positive and let's see if we can draw that out and connect the child and engage the child back into the learning in those ways. And that classroom teachers are more than happy to talk about what those things are and try to be accommodating to those needs during this time. So I really don't think that people should be afraid to reach out to a classroom teacher and to say, these are the kinds of issues that we're having and have those conversations about how can we draw the child back in to engage them in this learning? Because it's clear that the plans are not always going to work for everybody all of the time. And I don't think any of us are functioning in this place in which we think that that's true, that that's going to happen. So we need to continue to engage with each other in this process in order to help individual children to connect back to the learning. So it's tricky. It's hard to say, this is what you need to do when your child wants to hide under the table and not pay attention to a reading lesson, but that there are people at school who can talk you through that and can connect with your child on that and see if we can bring them back in, help them set learning goals for the week and help them pick things that are engaging for them to help them be able to build their comfort level with the learning that's happening at home for school. Can I just add one thing to that, Kate? And I agree completely. I would say, first of all, it would be remiss not to mention just when I read a question like this, it reminds me of what a special place school is. Particularly reminds me of how much of learning K through two is experiential and collaborative and social. So this transition and trying to bait students into using more screen time to get their content is really hard. I think it's something that families are grappling with and I know that our educational team is grappling with this as well. But just if it's helpful for Flynn and it's helpful for other families, I think one of the benefits of having our weekly learning plans with asynchronous content is the ability to be flexible and work with your child schedule. So I've talked with many families who their strategy is they know when, those times in the day that their students are more active or willing to engage. And so they're able to introduce those less appealing subject areas. Sometimes it's readings, sometimes it's writing, sometimes it's other stuff. So I would say one piece of advice would be to work with your child and try to think about timing. The second thing is I think this is going to take time. Providing a structure for the kids' day that's predictable is something that for schools is a part of what we do right from the start. We're providing kids with a really consistent, reliable routine, visual schedules, transitions, movement breaks. And of course, that's a really big expectation. It's hard to put on our parents. This is something that our teachers are trained to do and have experienced practicing and working with all sorts of different students. But providing some type of consistency and structure in their routine can also be a benefit for kids. And it may take time. I think patience is incredibly important for everybody. Self-compassion and compassion for the children. And then I would just end by saying, your teachers have a lot of institutional knowledge at least from September of 2019 about what works and what doesn't work. And I think those emails and reaching out and just mining them for information is always a great idea. The questions keep increasing. We're going to only have about 15 more minutes. So maybe we can get through more of them. Dr. McNeil, can you find some that haven't been answered in different ways? Yes, I am looking for some ones because a lot of them are that I'm reading right now go to the theme of plans for next fall. Dr. Hannah talked about the recommendation for two contacts a week and at least one being a synchronous video. Here's one that has not been asked. And this goes probably to you, Dr. Bodie. So this comes from Georgina Prager. Can parents get access to some of the curriculum resources so we can help our kids focus on the intended principles for the assignments? And I know that we're following recommendations from the state and the Board of Health. So I don't think we're going to be offering opening up the building for parents to come in. So I don't know if you want to comment on that. Dr. Bodie. I'm not sure I interpreted the question as getting the resources. Yes, it's getting some of the curriculum resources. And I will state that in the Grids there are links to various resources, enrichment activities that are shared in the Grids. So if parents want to open those links up there are curriculum resources that are shared in the Grids. So I can't comment on that. I don't know if any other principals want to follow up with that, but. Yeah, can I ask you a second? If I interpreted the question, if there's materials at the school that they would want, that their child had left in their desk and want those materials, that is going to have to wait. At this point, we have, as you know, distributed many Chromebooks and we've had to pick up outside the school to do that. But we are looking at a plan because we have lockers and we have destiny to be cleared out. But I'm not sure that's what the intent of the question was. One thing I want to repeat that Mr. Digmond mentioned is that these Grids are very rich and there's a lot of time spent on them. We're going to make them available beyond the school year so that there are other resources. I guess I would like more clarity on what resources we're talking about, but maybe somebody else has a different interpretation. Dr. Bode, I think that maybe it was, I think that maybe families were wondering about resources that could ramp them up in as quick a way as possible around the essential learning targets and instructional methods, things like that. So some kind of crash course in Turk math or... There are links in the grid that do offer those type of resources and there are lessons straight from Turk math for instance, for the math curriculum that our parents want to click on those links, they will have access to the resources that are utilized in order to plan the instruction if I'm interpreting that question to mean for them to have those type of resources available to them. Mr. Thad, did you want to add onto that? Yeah, I guess just one thing because I think it circles back to the question that we spoke to about progress reports and things like that. I think it isn't really important for parents to have a sense of the essential standards that were included in the weekly learning plans that started post May 4th. And so we will make sure that families have access to that. And then like you just mentioned, Dr. McNeil, ensuring that there are those grids that have been created weekly, we've heard from many parents who are letting us know that they're making decisions maybe to focus on certain areas and just having to let some content areas go because of the conditions in their home. And so should those families want to go back and either spiral back or eventually introduce that content, we're gonna want to give folks a chance. The other piece of this, I think, just to speak to maybe an idea of handing over our teaching guides or our curriculum resources, I just wanna remind everybody that our teachers not only are trained in the pedagogy, but we have coaching and professional development in many hours of that that we've dedicated to ensuring that those curriculum resources are implemented in the most impacting way possible. So just to hand them over, I think may would be incomplete and maybe even inadvertently problematic in some ways. So we know that our curriculum scope and sequence are gonna need to be adjusted for our students because this is, even though we are moving forward incrementally, it's not the optimal environment for our students. And that would be the work, the big work of teachers and administrators and curriculum directors and special educators to ensure that when we're able to get back to school that we're providing, we're meeting them as close to where we left off as possible. Okay, here's a question that has not been asked. What would be able to use to Chromebooks over the summer? We're talking about that being a possibility. In fact, probably a probability. I know that the library would like students to be able to have access to a device over the summer for the kind of programming that they want to offer to students this summer. So we will make a final decision on that, but I think there's a high probability that we will do that. Okay, there is another question for, I think maybe Dr. Bissen can answer this about when, and there's a couple of questions. So I'm gonna put them together for a theme. So it seems that there's a few questions about when students submit work for feedback, how are parents supposed to view the feedback? And I think that's through Google Classroom. So did you wanna talk about that? Yes, so the students can log in and see feedback in Google Classroom. We have recommended that teachers make families aware, and we've done this through professional development, set some sort of a schedule or let families know when feedback might be there for students because as you know, students do not have email in the elementary grades. So currently that is what is in place. If you need to check in with your child's teacher to understand how they're planning on giving feedback please do. Okay, do we have time for a couple more questions? And this one is probably for Alison Elmer, a director of special education for students who are undergoing testing for additional supports and for which that testing is not now moving forward until in-person school resumes. Are there any supports that could be made available? I answered a similar question in talks for another family as Ms. Peretz explained during this. We have to consider individually whether we can assess a child through remote means. For many reasons it's unlikely we'll be able to but we will be making those individual considerations on a case-by-case basis. Your school teams are still meeting and so I would encourage folks who aren't currently eligible for special education services to reach out to their building principals to connect about any additional resources that can be provided to students. We still have student support teams who are convening at the building level. So I would encourage folks to reach out there. If you do have an active special ed consent out there please contact your special ed team chairperson for additional follow-up. Okay, and we have a question from Shira Wolff. This is new. When will students know the names of their future teachers next year? Is this process of mixing children up going to continue as usual just like a regular end of the year would? Or will this be different because of COVID-19? So does elementary principal want to address this question? Anyone want to address that? Yeah, cool. Transitioning for next year and when those type of information. Yes, yes, absolutely. Sorry, we are definitely starting that placement process now. And there's a lot about the placement process that will stay exactly the same as it would be if we were in school obviously with a new consideration for the times. But I think that when we think about placement for our students, we think about so many different things into the next school year. So that there's a short answer to that question and then there's a longer, much more complicated answer to that question. Because obviously this time of school closure and living through a pandemic is going to make things feel different in a lot of ways. And we're gonna have to put another level of understanding into our placement process. But in any given year, we look at the data that we have for our children. And fortunately, we do have a great deal of data that we collected up until March 13th and that our teachers do know our children very well. And that we will be using that in addition to really thinking about not just the academic piece, but the social emotional piece and other basic kind of pieces of information about kids, about special education plans, about 504s, about EL needs and all of those things will help to create balanced classrooms. So I think that there's not really a short answer. Yes, we're just gonna keep everybody the same in the classrooms. And I've heard people say that quite a lot, actually. Why don't we just keep these classrooms the same and roll them over into the next year? But I think it's really not a process that is that simple. So we are starting it now. If you haven't heard from your building principle yet, you probably will really soon looking for some input from you and that you'll be hearing much more about the process as the weeks roll on. And so I'm gonna- We have time for one more. One more, yes. And then we'll talk about the ones that haven't been answered yet. Yes, people want to know how we're going to address that. So we're up to 107 open questions. So we have a few, again, another theme. So Dr. Bodie, do you want to talk about the different ways that we could open up in the fall because parents are still asking about what are the possibilities that we're considering and what would it look like? Especially in light of the fact that we haven't heard and we're yet to hear direction from the governor. I don't know if you wanna reiterate what you said earlier. Well, there have been many things that people have talked about that you have to go to the fundamentals, so how do you make, ensure that students are safe, staff are safe? How do you maintain social distancing? How do you, if taking temperatures is one of the, one of the ways that you monitor students coming into school, how has that practically done? For example, even if you went into staggered sessions where it A, B schedule, one day, half another, or split sessions, take for Oddison, for example, with 900 students, how do you monitor in the morning, taking the temperature of 450 students as they come through the door socially distanced? So there are a lot of practical things that we have to take into consideration, but certainly there have been anywhere from what we're currently doing, but maybe with a different level of synchronicity next year, we could have split sessions, AB sessions, there could just be a delayed opening. Honestly, we're looking at all of these possibilities, but we don't know the answer yet. And I go back to what are the conditions that would have to be in place in order for us to open. And I think some of those are guided by the governor, by the Department of Education and the Department of Public Health as well. Okay, and then I think that we need to address one question if we can, this will be the final one about kindergarteners and incoming kindergarteners for the fall, because there was a few questions about how we're going to intake those kindergarteners in light of the situation. Yes, we have some discussion about that among the elementary principals as to, we have different options. What one of the things that we do is we have a parent meeting in usually in May, and then we have a chance for the student to come and meet the teachers at their school. And then there's a process of going through the screening process, and none of those are happening. But on the other hand, we can create again, some kind of virtual introduction to the kindergarten, which we will be planning. We already know that we have quite a large entering kindergarten class, but some parts of it will have to be deferred into the fall. And again, that would be part of our planning because if we're not starting physically in the building, how is that going to work with our kindergarten students? But we will have a session this spring or early June, so the same kind of timeframe we normally have it in which we have just an evening for kindergarten parents in which we can talk about the kindergarten experience and the process of transiting from preschool to kindergarten. Okay. I don't know if we wanna close, it is now 8.34, so did you wanna close with some closing remarks and then talk about how we're going to respond to the questions and get those responses out to the public? We will take a look, first of all, thank you very much. The number of people that has gone down, actually, since we first started, we're down to in the 300s versus up in the 400s. So thank you very much for being with us this evening. And I think the very fact that so many people are have turned out to participate this evening says there's a real need for having more opportunities that you can have questions answered and connect with teachers and administrators in the district. And we will be planning more of these as we go forward. As far as the questions that came in this evening, there's quite a few of them. We may have to take some time to sort of get back and sort of create a theme around questions that haven't been answered. But we will do that and probably have a part of the Q&A that's on the district website right now for parents, but indicate what were the questions from this evening that were not answered. Again, thank you very much. And most importantly, thank you for partnering with us during this very difficult and challenging time. I hope that this evening you have a much better insight into the kind of the thinking, the planning that's been going on in our district. So I wish you good health for you and your family as we move forward and tell you that we continue to appreciate working with all of you. Thank you and thank you to all the panelists this evening for being here and we'll look forward to another opportunity like this. Thank you very much. Good night. The recording has stopped.