MPCSD District Newsletter
May 20, 2020
Providing a world-class, community-funded education.
A Note from Superintendent Burmeister
Dear Parents,

Nothing would please me more than to share with you a plan for reopening in the fall. The reality is that it is still too early to communicate a plan as guidelines continue to change. However, I can assure you that scenario planning has begun with the direct involvement of our School Board; MPCSD will have plans mapped out relatively soon for each of the scenarios in which we are most likely to open come August 20, 2020. 

MPCSD will not be opening early as the Governor once stated might be possible; however, we will offer an expanded Summer School program. This year there will be a modified summer offering at each school, serving more students than the one large program we usually run. In the next couple of weeks, many more families than would normally receive an invitation to Summer School will receive a letter inviting them to participate in the four-week program. If you do not receive the invitation, that is okay. Our program is focused on filling instructional gaps for students most in need of support, as determined by each teacher. 

Additionally, MPCSD is working with some camp providers and our after school program, Newton, to develop some unique, fee-based summer options for families in need of child care and/or a respite from the very real demands of Sheltering in Place. Whatever we are able to provide will be within Health Department guidelines. We will share opportunities with you once they are finalized.

I know you have questions. I know you are bombarded with articles, blogs, and social media posts of all different varieties proposing to know the exact right plan for the fall. I know you worry about your family's health and wonder just how much risk is the right amount to take. If there were easy, irrefutable answers, I would provide them; believe me, there's nothing more I would rather do. However, planning for next year is complicated and fraught with challenges, the contexts of which are changing daily. 

It is my hope that by mid to late June, MPCSD will publish the 3-5 most likely health and public policy scenarios and what MPCSD schools will look like under each scenario. As we approach August 20, 2020, the reality of the facts on the ground will determine the plan. 

In the meantime, I appreciate your patience, feedback, and continued support of and confidence in your local school district staff. I thank you for your support of MPCSD Helps , which provides weekly food and necessities for nearly 200 student families. I thank the staff for their doggedness and flexibility, but most of all for the love and kindness they show our families every day. 

We will get through this. I can't wait to breathe a sigh of relief and share a handshake or a hug with you on the other side of it. 

In this with you,
Erik
New for you - from our amazing nurses. MPCSD Nurses are working hard during this time to ensure we come back as safely as possible. They have also created a helpful new website with health and wellness tips and even delicious recipes and fun activities for home. Check it out!
In This Newsletter

  • School Board Meetings: Homework Policy
  • Honoring our Awardees and Staff
  • Distance Learning Expectations
  • Temporary Grading Policy
  • ...and more!
Menlo Park Councilmember Hosts Regional Education Conversation

Three local superintendents, including our own Erik Burmeister, join a panel discussion on the impact of COVID-19 on public education. Ray Mueller hosts this conversation TONIGHT, Wednesday, May 20, 7-8 p.m. Join here .
Food Support During Pandemic

The state has approved additional benefits during the pandemic for families who are eligible for Free and Reduced Lunch. These food benefits are called Pandemic EBT or P-EBT benefits. P-EBT benefits help families in California buy food when schools are closed. Families will get up to $365 per eligible child on their P-EBT card to use on food and groceries. Beginning on May 22,  apply for this benefit here .  If you are not already enrolled in the hot lunch program, please apply for that here first .
School Board News & Views
School Board meetings are held at the TERC Boardroom, 181 Encinal Avenue, Atherton. Please see the meeting schedule here . You may email your Board Members any time at board@mpcsd.org .

The School Board is meeting via Zoom until further notice. Please check the district homepage under "Announcements" regularly for meeting dates and how to be involved. Tomorrow (May 21, 6-8 p.m.), the Board will hold a special study session about the District Budget. Click here for details on how to listen/participate if you wish. You may submit questions/comment ahead of the meeting by emailing info@mpcsd.org . Please include your full name and address when submitting a question. Input received via email will be read at the appropriate time for public comment during the Board meeting.

At its May 14 meeting, the Board discussed the second draft of the district's revised homework policy. The Board was overall supportive of the policy, yet acknowledges that it may not work well for rigorous classes like the high school language classes offered at Hillview. The Board did not vote on the policy, but agreed to bring it to vote at the June 11 meeting while planning for a more in-depth discussion about the requirements for homework in advanced language classes. When the Board votes on June 11, the policy will not apply to those language classes. Over the course of two years, Assistant Superintendent Jammie Behrendt as led an advisory team that included elementary and middle school teachers and parents. The team looked at best practices and current research around homework policy when crafting MPCSD's new policy. Please read the draft homework policy here and/or Assistant Superintendent Behrendt's presentation here , and plan to attend the June 11 School Board meeting (instructions on attending virtual meetings is above) if you are interested in commenting or hearing the next discussion.
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Congratulations Service Award Recipients
In "normal" years, the May calendar is chock full of exciting year-end events, may focused on thanking and recognizing the parent volunteers and MPCSD staff who have made extraordinary contributions to our schools over the year.

While we don't have the usual PTO and MPAEF thank you events, we have many amazing parents and staff to thank for the work they have been doing all year long. Please join us in congratulating the following parents and staff for their contributions:
Golden Oak Award
Given to parents who are concluding their tenure in MPCSD and have been stand-out volunteers for many years, and to retiring MPCSD staff & teachers.

Al Hart
Dorothy Lopez
Scott Marshall
Liliana Perazich
Bill Quarre
Mark Shack
Jenn Shoup
Trish Stella
Kris Swanson
Ken Wang
Presidents Award
Given to parents who have served as the president of our volunteer leadership organizations.

Amy Bagdasarian & Laura Wiggs,
Encinal PTO
Kelly Parisi & Anjali Patel,
Laurel PTO
Sarah Sobel, Oak Knoll PTO
Carolyn Kryger & Liliana Perazich,
Hillview PTO
Janelle McCombs & Ben Wang,
One Community Campaign
Katie Rottier & Sarah Thayer, MPAEF
Azadeh Rasmussen, District Council
District Service Award
Given to parents or staff who have made an exceptional contribution to the MPCSD community during a school year. This year's recipients have all stepped up to organize the weekly collection and distribution of groceries to our most vulnerable families during the coronavirus pandemic.

Kelly Morehead, Parent Volunteer
Liliana Perazich, Parent Volunteer
Flor Espinal, District Family Engagement Liaison
Debi Rice, District Hot Lunch Coordinator
District Staff Recognition
In addition to year-end service awards, MPCSD recognizes its employees every year who are marking a special anniversary with the district or have achieved an exceptional career milestone. This year's honorees will be recognized by the School Board at its June 4 meeting. To attend this meeting virtually, please see the instructions for joining the Zoom meeting here . (Check after May 30, as the instructions change for each upcoming meeting.)
Celebrating 5 Years of Service
Frederic Adams
Larence Barkhoy
Courtney Comstock
Grant Conour
Aruna Dutta
Hernan Espinal
Jill Frederiksen
Marisela Ghahramani
Lianne Jemelian
Ellen Kraska
Ashley Ludlow
Rafaela Maravilla
Maria Martinez
Pamela Musladin
Joseph O'Brien
Russ Peterson
Kathryn Rippentrop
Hope Scheid
Lisa Stickles
Megan Stone
Parke Treadway
Leigh Wilson
Allison Zeiser

Celebrating 10 Years of Service
Michelle Betancourt
Alejandro Causor
Theresa Fox
James Green
Nancy McMahon
Lupita Montoya

Celebrating 15 Years of Service
Christine Atkinson
Erika Caruso
Emily Chen
Susan Churba
Sydney Cooper
Denise Healy
Sandra Horwitz
Rachel Naishtut
Ada Reid-Watson
Michelle Tom

Celebrating 20 Years of Service
John Ashfield
Carrie Bildstein
Steffany Cressey Brown
Alexa Eaton
Donna Fogel
Diane Glasser
Kristen Gracia
Mary Pimental
Vivian Pogorelskin
Robyn Watts

Celebrating 25 Years of Service
Andra Dehne
Susan Hogan
Russell Knight
Joan von der Linden
Lisa Walton

Celebrating 30 Years of Service
Lynn Callahan
Jeriann Hirsch
Celebrating Earning Tenure
Deborah Cha, Linda Dugoni, Andre Ehling, Christie Giacomozzi, Tracey Gray, Elizabeth Harmon, Kelley Otis, Elizabeth Montoya, Ana Lozano Pardo, Lindsay Sharif, Kyle Tashman, Maria Teresa Tenorio, Daniel Valdez, Laura Zielinski
Celebrating our Multilingual Students
MPCSD students come from all over the world and speak dozens of different home languages. This diversity of cultures and experiences is one of the reasons our community is so special and engaging. Students that do not speak English at home or have English as their first language receive support to learn English from specialized English Learner teachers. Every year, those students are assessed to see if they meet English fluency standards. When they do, they are considered English proficient and no longer require special supports. MPCSD's goal is that no student leaves the district without becoming English proficient. Proficiency also allows rising high schoolers access to all the college prerequisite courses available.

This year, the usual gathering and celebration recognizing our reclassified students and their families was held over Zoom on May 5. We are so proud of the 28 students, representing seven differ ent home languages, who now have the lifelong advantage of multi-lingualism! And we are grateful to the EL teachers who work with these students all year long: Diana Torres (Encinal), Emily Chen & guest teacher Michelle Marini (Laurel Lower Campus), Emily Smith (Laurel Upper Campus), Susan Hogan (Oak Knoll), and Cheryl Marelich (Hillview).
MPCSD's Temporary Grading Policy
The School Board has approved a temporary change to its grading system for use during distance learning. Like all districts, we are grappling with the fact that it is more difficult for students to demonstrate their academic performance through distance learning. Further, some students must now work to help their family, watch younger siblings while parents work, or face any number of disadvantages created or heightened by the modified school operations and shelter in place public health orders. In addition, it may be difficult for teachers to measure mastery in all grade-level standards under these circumstances. MPCSD's modified grading practices are intended to prevent students from being unfairly disadvantaged.

Temporary Change for Elementary School
Narrative evaluation: A narrative evaluation is a way to evaluate academic performance and provide feedback on students’ individual progress. During distance learning, this approach can be used as an alternative to grading. Narrative evaluations provide students and parents with a written evaluation based on evidence of learning and will take into account the unprecedented nature of an elementary student's learning environment. Please note that in the T3 box of the report card, parents will see "DL" which indicates Distance Learning.

Two Options for Temporary Change for Middle School (Individual Teachers will Choose which Option to Use for their Classes)
Option 1 - Traditional letter grades with a lens towards equity: In this approach, middle school teachers continue course evaluation by providing a letter grade A, B, or C. If there is not enough evidence of work for teachers to assign a letter grade of A, B, or C, then students will receive an IE (insufficient evidence). This option allows for teachers to recognize that individual students may not have adequate support systems in place to demonstrate evidence of learning course content during Distance Learning, and/or that scores below 70% are not representative of what students know or are able to do, but rather a consequence of our current context and being outside the support system of the school environment. 

Option 2 - Mastery Grading Scale: A mastery grading scale supports an evidence-based grading system in which students are assessed based on evidence of learning rather than other factors such as date assignment is turned in, participation in virtual lessons, virtual attendance, the format of evidence, etc. Teachers in an evidence-based grading system collect evidence of mastery of content-specific learning targets and assign an overall course score (for example, one through four) based on that evidence. If there is not enough evidence of work for teachers to determine mastery, then students will receive an IE (insufficient evidence). A mastery grading scale provides greater flexibility to the teacher to ensure that students are not being penalized for factors that may be out of their control during distance learning.
Distance Learning Expectations
MPCSD has developed a Distance Learning Baseline Expectations  document  to help inform families. The guide is intended to support you during these unprecedented times by offering general guidelines on how instruction and assignments are developed for school closure.

We know that different families will have different time windows when students may be able to work on assignments, particularly using technology, so we are giving students the flexibility to complete assignments on their own schedules. Teachers may also share opportunities for students to join in video chats, online discussions, and/or live connections and these opportunities might only be offered at certain times. Students are not penalized for being unable to attend these opportunities.

Together we will thrive through the final weeks of school. As always, if you have questions or concerns about your child's class or assignments, please email the teacher. If you have questions about the technology or apps being used, please email distancelearning@mpcsd.org .
Hillview Show Off its Talent - And Generosity
Last Friday the Hillview Talent Show made history by going virtual on YouTube! It was quite a production and an amazing showcase of Hillview's talents. And many celebrity guests - from the worlds of sports, TV, and movies - made inspirational appearances as well. Hillview Activities Directors Brian Darmanain and Katrina Hagg, as well as our 8th-grade ASB (student government), worked hard to make sure this beloved end-of-year tradition was able to continue and reach an even wider audience. In case you missed it, check out the show here:
But it wasn't only a talent show; it was also a fundraiser for Second Harvest Food Bank. The ASB set a goal of raising $6,000 and have raised over $23,000! We are so grateful for our compassionate Hillview students and community.
Erik Burmeister, Superintendent | mpcsd.org
Governing Board
Stacey Jones, President
Sherwin Chen, Vice President
David Ackerman
Mark Box
Scott Saywell