Questions Answered By Dr. Michelle Rodriguez, Superintendent, Pajaro Valley Unified School District
Q. Do you really think is 100% safe to send our students back to school this fall — when it’s said that that’s the time for a heavier wave of COVID-19?
Dr. Michelle Rodriguez
The safety and health of our students and staff are our first priority as we consider reopening our schools. We are currently working with PVUSD Contingency Planning Teams to develop various scenarios according to health restriction protocols which may be established at the date of school openings.
These scenarios include both modified in- person class settings and distance learning. We will rely on guidance from health experts throughout the process and adopt evidence-based public health measures at every school site and workplace to ensure that we meet the needs of students and staff. We will be releasing a survey to students, parents and staff to gather feedback on initial reopening contingency plans.
Additional opportunities to provide feedback on plans once they are formulated will also occur.
Q. Will students be required to return chrome books at the end of this school year (June 5), or will they be allowed to keep them during the summer to continue learning activities online?
Only seniors will be required to return their Chromebooks during the week of June 8. All other students will keep their Chromebooks for learning either during the summer or the fall. Eventually, all elementary students will return their Chromebooks back to the school sites. More information will come from the individual elementary school sites in the fall.
Q. Will there be distance learning Summer School offered?
Yes. PVUSD summer learning materials will be provided to K-8 students. These pre-assembled summer learning packets will include reading material, reading log, and activity book that focuses on writing, science, reading and math.
The district will also provide a suggested home learning schedule with bilingual videos to support parents in accessing the learning packets. Lastly, a STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Math) website will be available for students to access online lessons developed by some of our community partner organizations such as City of Watsonville, Arts Council of Santa Cruz, and Code Naturally. Summer learning packets, sample schedule, and STEAM website will be available to all K-8 students. For students in grades 9-12, credit recovery opportunities will be available through Edgenuity, as in the past.
Students will be able to enroll in Edgenuity’s online, A-G approved courses. Applications are now available for the June session. For more information about summer school, please call the PVUSD Extended Learning Department at 831-786-2360.
Q. I ordered a yearbook from my school. How will I be able to receive that?
Sites are receiving yearbooks at different time periods between now and the end of the school year. Individual sites will be communicating with parents and students about a pick up day. These days will likely be attached to the collection of textbooks and distribution of personal belongings from student desks and lockers.
Q. Will we be required to take final exams at the end of this school year?
It is not a requirement to give final exams and this decision will continue to be left to each teachers’ discretion. Any final exams given this year will need to be technology driven as in person finals are not possible.
Q. Will Middle Schools follow the same idea as High Schools in regards to graduation? I haven’t seen anything online for 8th grade promotions.
As physical promotion ceremonies are not possible, Middle Schools will be having a virtual celebration to recognize their students’ accomplishments. Parents and students will receive information from their individual school sites with specific information on dates and times.
Q. How is the grading policy different now due to the COVID-19 outbreak?
All three levels, elementary, middle school and high school grading policies were developed with a set of guiding principles to ensure that students were held harmless during the unprecedented time.
We believe our distance learning model values students’ efforts and commitment while prioritizing students who may need additional support. For high school, students will continue to receive grades so that they have grades for their transcripts for future college and scholarship applications. Students participating in distance learning will receive a grade equal or higher to their third quarter grade.
If a student is not able to consistently participate, the first step will be to consider a program shift by providing other options such as Independent Study, Adult Education, credit recovery, or paper packets. If we are unable to find another option, a committee of stakeholders, which could include counselors, teachers, the parent and the student will go through an Interactive Dialogue Process led by the Assistant Principal. The students are held harmless if they cannot participate. They will receive the same grade that they received in the third quarter.
Only the students that cannot demonstrate a valid reason for their nonparticipation will receive a noncredit. For middle school students, since their grades are not noted on a transcript, students will receive either a credit for an A-C grade in the 4th quarter as determined by the teacher or a non-credit for students receiving a D-F in the 4th quarter as determined by the teacher.
Neither of the two marks will change their GPA for the year. For elementary students, all students will receive evidenced based comments from their teacher. In addition, they will also receive a mark for participation and effort. No other marks will be given for the third trimester.
Q. How often do you do Footstep 2 Brilliance reading challenge? Is there a link we can access to view when is the next challenge starts and ends? Our preschool just signed up, we are excited for our students to have access and participate in these challenges.
We are proud of how many preschool to third grade students are reading and using the Footsteps2Brilliance (Paso a Paso) program. We will have our next Paso a Paso reading challenge starting during the summer from June 8-August 7, 2020. We will be publicizing the reading challenge within the next several weeks.
Q. I have a daughter with an IEP. What would be recommendations for her in activities?
To best answer this question we would need to know the age range and the disability of your daughter. We do have some general places that you can look for support. Special Services has a website where we have posted parent resources. (https://www.pvusd.net/selpa). On this page you can find information from a variety of specialists, including Adaptive PE activities, visual supports, how to use reward systems, and tips from a school psychologist.
All information is in both English and Spanish. We also have an “Ask a Specialist” section on the web site. If you would like additional information or specific supports please reach out to the teacher that is working with your child. They will be able to give you ideas. In addition, you can also reach the SELPA Director (Heather Gorman) at (831) 786-2130 she can help to give you further information.
Q. Is there any ongoing process to get locally grown fruits and vegetables out to families that need them? With the COVID19 situation I would think that our ag businesses may have crops that they cannot sell and there are probably many local families that could use them.
Food & Nutrition Services currently purchases almost $30,000 a week in fresh produce for students to take home to eat through school breakfast, school lunch, and a recess fruit and vegetable grant. These include purchases through Watsonville Coast Produce for local items such as strawberries, oranges, broccoli, cauliflower, celery, and kiwi.
Elkhorn Slough Foundation has also been donating local produce weekly to Hall District kitchen to provide strawberries, chard, kale, and other local vegetables that cafeteria staff pack up and pass out in addition to school meals. Extremely local produce is also being grown in some PVUSD school gardens!
Fitness 4 Life through the Sage Garden Project is helping to harvest and pass out wonderful items from WCSA such as cabbage, broccoli and peas. School gardens at Starlight, Ann Soldo, and MacQuiddy were also harvested by LifeLab and FoodCorps and that fresh produce was given to families to enjoy. Local farms, if having issues selling their produce, will not have the labor to harvest and package the produce.
Therefore, there have not been many donations coming straight from farms yet. Any new partnerships/donations would be welcome, contact Food & Nutrition Services at (831)786-2325.