December 14, 2020
Dear Great Hearts Families,
I hope this letter finds your family most well and looking forward to a peaceful holiday season.
We would like to share some more information with our distance learning families relative to new guidance from the Texas Education Agency (TEA). Most of our students are thriving in distance learning, but for those who have had academic challenges, this new information is relevant. On November 5, the TEA granted public schools the authority to develop policies to require some distance learning students who are “at significant risk of severe learning loss” to return to in-building instruction.
Pursuant to this and in compliance with TEA requirements, Great Hearts schools will begin requiring distance learners to return to in-building instruction if both of the following are true:
1. The student is earning a failing grade (letter grade of “F” or “U”) in one or more
core subject areas (math, science, history, ELA; upper school foreign language);
2. The student has no documented health condition that would place him/her at
elevated risk of complications from a COVID-19 infection, as attested by a
physician.
(Note that health conditions in family members do not exempt a failing distance learning student from being subject to required return.)
A Great Hearts school shall give families at least 2 weeks’ (14 calendar days’) notice of a date of required student return.
Parents may agree to change their child’s learning environment to on-campus or appeal in one of two ways:
• Submitting a medical exemption. Parents may mail, hand-deliver, or email a written exemption request to the campus, along with medical authorization from a physician.
• Requesting a transition meeting. If a parent requests a transition meeting, the school will schedule the meeting with no less than 3 days’ notice and will allow the student to continue to learn remotely until the meeting has been held. The transition meeting may be held in person or virtually at the family’s request.
If the parent does not appeal, or, if at the conclusion of the transition meeting, the school does not conclude with the parent that the student can be successful learning from home, the school may then require the student to transition to on-campus learning. Unexcused non-attendance by the student on and after the required date of return to in-person learning shall be noted appropriately and may result in loss of enrollment.
Yours faithfully,
