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April 14, 2021
Dear GLOBE Parents,
As you know, we have been in discussions with our Reopening Committee for the past several months about how to transition our students from remote learning to in-person instruction. Today, we are pleased to share the details of how we will move to a four-day in-person model for many of our students.
First, we would like to extend a huge thank you to our Reopening Committee, which has been meeting each Tuesday since September to help us navigate through many unknowns during this pandemic. Our committee undertook this effort with a close consideration of the following factors:
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Pandemic Conditions - Acknowledging the primacy of the health and safety of students.
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Student Well-being - Recognizing that student academic, social, and emotional wellbeing, as well as our dual-language immersion model, are best served by in-person schooling.
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Community Context - Claiming GLOBE’s unique ability to chart its own path in reopening as a public charter school while also recognizing that GLOBE’s mission takes place in the context of an ever-changing environment. In particular, we have paid close attention to changes in school district(s) reopening plans, vaccination availability and distribution, and other contextual factors.
We would also like to thank you for your willingness to work with us and navigate this unfamiliar territory together.
On Monday, May 3, 2021, K-5 students currently attending school face-to-face 2 days per week will transition to attending 4 days per week (M,Tu, Th, F). Due to constraints driven by classroom space and the middle-school schedule, middle school students will remain in a two-day hybrid learning model.
All students who have been attending completely virtually must remain virtual:
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Students in Kindergarten and 1st grade will log into the live classroom for 4 days each week instead of 2 beginning on May 3rd
- There will be no changes to how the all-virtual 2nd - 8th graders attend their classes
We understand that many of you have wondered why we didn’t return to 4-day in-person learning sooner. It was important to us to ensure that all staff had the opportunity to be fully vaccinated, and allow for the opportunity to see what impact spring break might have had on community transmission. It was also imperative that we consider the need for an ironclad testing environment for the Milestones Test. Milestones is the state mandated assessment that all schools must give to students in grades 3-8. The testing environment affects all grades, even those that are not testing.
Our expectations for these last weeks of school is for our students who have been attending face-to-face to increase their time in the physical classroom. Not only will this benefit the students’ social and emotional health, it will also have benefits for acquisition of the target language. Our teachers will continue to provide as much support as possible for those students who are attending virtually; however there will be an additional transition as they learn how to navigate having additional children in the classroom while also concurrently teaching those online. This has been such a hard year for everyone, and our goal is to help turn this around by supporting our students in wrapping up this academic year with as positive of an experience as possible.
This transition to 4 days of in-person instruction means that we will be roughly doubling the number of children in each classroom. While this is aligned with CDC guidelines allowing for elementary-aged children to sit closer together while masked, we will be unable to maintain the recommended 6-feet of distance when children remove their masks to eat lunch. Additionally, while our teachers continue to remind our younger students to maintain physical distance, it has proven difficult to sustain this throughout the school day. We wanted to be sure that our community members were aware of these changes - as always, if you prefer that your child attend school virtually, you are welcome to make that permanent transition at any time. If this is your choice, please make sure to email the appropriate school administrator to notify them of the change.
With our transition to a 4 day per week in-person model, it is important that students slated to attend in-person arrive at school if they are able. If your child stays home because they are sick, this should be treated as an official sick day, and they should not log into the virtual classroom. Please remember to notify the nurse if your child is sick and/or has been exposed to COVID-19. If you or your child have tested positive or had close contact with someone who is positive, your student(s) must quarantine and notify the appropriate school nurse, Lindsay Reese (Lower Campus) or Cherrie Robinson (Upper Campus), immediately. Students required to quarantine will be given instructions for logging into the virtual classroom.
We will continue to follow the pandemic conditions both in the metro-Atlanta area as well as within our GLOBE community. If there is a dramatic increase in cases, or if we experience substantial transmission within our school, we may need to delay or roll back this transition.
We know that you are wondering about what the school week will look like next year. It is our expectation that we will begin the 2021-2022 academic year with a 5-day per week in-person learning model. As before, we will await guidance from the DeKalb County School District alongside information about the local pandemic conditions to finalize these plans.
Sincerely,
Christi Elliott-Earby
Executive Director
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