Superintendent Blog - Friday, October 16, 2020

Equity Report Card Update

We are very excited to share our BCSD Equity Report Card.   Last year, the BCSD Board of Education established a district equity goal as part of their board goal setting.  The goal is here:

Equity 

The BCSD will celebrate diversity and provide an equitable education for all students by working to eliminate race, ethnicity, class, gender identity, sexuality, and disability as predictors of student success.

As part of our work, we have created an Equity Report Card for the school district.  We use data regularly as part of our work as educators including this report card.  Due to the hard work of our teachers, our Beacon High School graduation rate has seen significant positive progress in the past two years.  We also have many areas across the district that we need to improve.  We will update you about our work on this at board meetings, the district diversity committee, and via email.  You can access the report card here:   Equity Report Card

We are continuing with several initiatives this year that have contributed  or will contribute to improvements in outcomes for our students:

• Implementation of Restorative Practices and Talking Circles
• Implementation of Responsive Classroom
• Curriculum writing and implementation 
• Dignity Framework Training for educators in the district
• Equity Leadership Teams in each of our school buildings

 

We will share more about our efforts as the year progresses.  

Please let me know if you have questions, suggestions, or concerns at landahl.m@beaconk12.org.

Community Announcement:

Urgent Blood Drive Sunday, 10/18/20 11:00am-5:00pm

Lewis Tompkins Hose-13 South Ave. Beacon

Sponsored by the Beacon Hebrew Alliance

To signup visit www.nybc.org or call 1-800-933-2566

 

Have a good weekend and stay safe!

Matt Landahl

Sorry this did not go out on Friday, we were having an issue with our messenger system that caused a delay. 

Reopening Updates

Thanks for joining me on the Reopening BCSD Townhall earlier last week.  Here were a few of the main messages:

• Our staff and community have been amazing supporting and implementing this reopening plan.  Thank you!!! 
• Our plan consisting of wearing masks, social distancing, reducing the numbers of students in classrooms, health screening, and cleaning is working. 
• As COVID-19 cases rise in the state and region, we may have a positive case with a staff member or a student.  If that occurs, we may need to do a short-term closure of a school to allow for contact tracing and cleaning.  We will communicate with the community throughout the entire process.  Much of this depends on our work with the Dutchess County Department of Health but we are prepared for various contingencies.
• The elementary in-person schedule will continue with the 9:30 start time.  If we foresee a change with this, we will communicate in advance with everyone.
• We are working to improve our Reopening model on a daily basis.  
• Our next Reopening Zoom Townhall will be in November.

 

We will add a link to the zoom town hall on the website this week.  I will send an email out with the link when we have it ready.  

In-Person Board Meetings

We will continue our in-person board meetings on Tuesday, October 13 at 7:00.  Due to state regulations, we must adhere to the 50 person event capacity and this number includes board members and staff.  You may also participate in the board meeting via the Zoom link that is provided.  It is important while we have our schools open we reopen our board meetings as well.  Thanks for your understanding of the challenges we face as we host in-person meetings with the regulations and guidelines in place.  

Here is the zoom link to tonight’s board meeting: 

https://E2CCB-GST.zoom.us/j/99519326970?pwd=MVlvK3hwaE1xVkxNQWV0UTN1d1lCdz09

 

Have a good day!

 

Matt

August 13, 2020

 

Dear Beacon Community:

I hope everyone is doing well!  I wanted to provide some updates on Reopening BCSD. First I just wanted to say that I know this is a difficult and challenging time for everyone in our community.  I am committed to both strengthening our plan and communicating regularly with the district about it.  Please let me know if you have any questions.

Decision Timeline Extended to August 21

Last week you received a letter which I have attached to this email asking you to make a choice for your child between a hybrid (two days in school, three days out) model or an all-remote model of instruction and we gave August 14th as the deadline.

I am extending this deadline to August 21.  If you feel that you can make this decision now, please do so because it greatly helps our planning but it is ok also to wait.  If you choose hybrid in-person and develop either health issues or concerns or become uncomfortable, you may choose remote at any time.  If you choose remote and want to change, we will make the change in January.

Please fill out this link with your decision:  https://forms.gle/5qNgK4dYYwAAkyzKA

Masks

Here is the language in our reopening plan on masks:

Short Version:  Masks are required of everyone and so are mask beaks.  Mask breaks will be directed by staff in our buildings and be developmentally appropriate.

From the plan:

All building occupants will be required to maintain social distancing of at least 6 feet from one another. Face masks are required to be worn in the school buildings.  Teachers will be required to give students mask breaks several times during the day.   Additionally, other Personal Protective Equipment may also be necessary.  Each school building will utilize visual aids such as floor decals to promote social distancing in commonly used areas and areas where lines are formed and bi-directional arrows to direct traffic flow in hallways and other common areas.  

Start of the School Year:

I am working with the Board of Education to add two additional professional learning days to the beginning of the year and make September 10 and 11 orientation days for all students with the plan of September 14 being the start of hybrid and remote instruction.  When this gets officially adopted, we will share a revised calendar with everyone.

Remote Learning

We are working with our administrators and teachers to further develop our remote learning plan.  It is a complex task and I will share more information next week on what it will look like.

Communications Plan

We have several zoom town halls coming up.

Beacon High School tonight at 7:00

Rombout Middle School Tuesday, August 18 at 7:00

PPS Department on Tuesday, August 18 at 11:30 and Wednesday, August 19 at 7:00

Superintendent Update Zoom on Thursday, August 21 at 2:00

All of these sessions will be recorded and posted.

Have a great rest of your day!

 

Matt Landahl