• Enhancing Student Connection, Engagement, and Motivation
• Students and teachers feel motivated to be in class, and teachers think the planning time they have supports lesson plan development and preparation. Our secondary students feel being on campus is very important. They believe the teachers are effective; however, large homework loads and motivation are concerns, especially at high school. 
• Many parents and families expressed a desire for more time for learning or being on campus, and our recent changes to our hybrid and distance learning schedule support their interest. For example, almost 70 additional students opted-in for our upcoming module than in our previous one, for a total of 88% of students being on campus for module 5!
• Many parents, teachers, and students indicated that the live streaming technology’s sound quality needed improvement. As a result, CNG purchased additional microphones that allow teachers to be more mobile when conducting a lesson. Those microphones are being installed for all Primary School and Elementary School teachers and partner teachers (if applicable). We are also targeting specific secondary classrooms which have requested additional microphones. 
• Our students in remote learning expressed being ignored while on the Zoom call with their classroom. With the challenges of hybrid learning and simultaneously meeting the needs of groups on-site and online, our teachers and support staff are working hard to create singular, inclusive classrooms. We continue to support teachers in unifying classrooms through equitable instructional practices. Two professional development opportunities on January 18 and March 1 with a distance learning specialist Dr. Douglas Fisher, provide teachers with specific teaching and assessment strategies to use and help student engagement overall. Moreover, we plan to help teachers design tiered interventions in flexible groupings at primary and elementary levels, whether students are remote or in-class. 
• Enhancing Teacher Instructional Strategies
• In our survey results from over 235 staff, teachers have high motivation to plan engaging hybrid lessons using dynamic engagement strategies learned from previous professional training opportunities offered throughout the school year. Teachers at primary and elementary indicate greater opportunities with the revised schedule to provide better intervention services, including Spanish, mathematics, and literacy services. Staff also expressed that they are more comfortable using the variety of technology tools and applications available to guide student learning in the virtual or physical classroom. 
• Overall, our students shared that they are receiving more timely, actionable feedback during their lessons and the variety of assessments teachers use. Interestingly, parents expressed a need to provide more guided practice to decrease independent student work, most notably at earlier grade levels. 
• Student Assessment and Progress Monitoring
• At our earlier grade levels, academic intervention teams responded that they are better equipped to assess and monitor students who need more support. They can assist much earlier in the school year as a result. There are still challenges with the hybrid schedule to find time for more extensive progress monitoring. Teachers are working to find creative ways to use and standardize assessment records online during the pandemic. With better monitoring, teachers are also identifying more students who need intensive instruction in reading. 
• Students at high school express a desire to have more asynchronous time and feel the workload is too high. They also would like to have more one-on-one help and support from their teachers. 
• Teachers across CNG are using more varied assessment tools available to them to monitor learning in their classrooms. Video recordings, student polling, written reflections, formative checks are examples of the assessment tools used.
• Social/Emotional Support Structures
• Overall, parents indicate that they feel their children are more emotionally connected and motivated to be at school, especially with a greater number attending on-campus instruction. They are pleased that teachers meet one-on-one with students and more parents seem to be attending teacher office hours. Parents are pleased with the steps CNG is taking to increase instruction and learning time, and teachers feel their planning time to support hybrid instruction is also favorable. Teachers expressed how much energy goes into juggling all the nuances associated with teaching in a hybrid setting. Still, they felt they are continuing to adjust and be effective in this new reality. Student responses from students in the upper grades think a more balanced schedule is needed but value being back on campus. High school students surveyed shared they had a lower level of motivation and wanted more non-academic time.