Novato Unified School District's Superintendent Update, Hybrid And Full Return, 7-11 Committee, FANS Feedback For February 26

Novato CA

27 February, 2021

2:51 PM

Description

Press release from the Novato Unified School District: February 26, 2021 Dear NUSD Family, "This was a big week for NUSD. We welcomed our seventh and eighth grade students back to our campuses and moved to the red tier which allowed us to finalize the dates for our high schoolers to return. Additionally, we are getting clear guidance on expanded athletics at our high schools. Topics included in today's update are: High School Reentry High School Athletics Update on enhanced hybrid learning and future full return 7-11 Committee Update Black History Month FANS Update and Feedback Opportunity Virtual Learning Academy High School Reentry High school students will return as follows: Grades 9-10 March 1, 2021 Grades 11-12 March 8, 2021 Here are the bell schedules for each high school: Novato High School San Marin High School Marin Oaks High School High School Athletics We are excited to have guidance that will allow us to safely and rapidly return to high school athletics practices and competitions. While we await final decisions on the part of the Marin County Athletics League (MCAL), we do have this guiding document from the North Coast Section of the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF). We will be following all guidance from CIF and MCAL as we move forward with these very important seasons. More to come. Update on enhanced hybrid learning and future full return We now have specific plans to have all of our students TK-12 in hybrid learning by March 8, 2021. We have multiple sessions scheduled with the Novato Federation of Teachers to discuss ways to expand and enhance our hybrid learning experience for our students and teachers and what a full return to campus would look like. We look forward to positive and collaborative discussions on these important topics. We will provide an update to our community during the March 16, 2021, Board meeting. 7-11 Committee Update On Wednesday, February 24, 2021, the 7-11 committee met to learn more about NUSD demographics, enrollment trends over time, and future enrollment projections. They also heard a great deal about our current and future budget situation. All of this information will help the committee make important recommendations about the future use of NUSD facilities and properties to the School Board in May. You can view the recorded meeting here. Black History Month From a virtual assembly for high school students rapping African and African American history and contributions to first graders reading about Ruby Bridges and identifying four-character traits, teachers and students throughout the district recognized and celebrated Black History Month. While February is focused on Black history, many at NUSD agree with Mr. Quan at Olive School, "We study Black history all year long." To read about some of the examples of the learning and activities that took place this month, please go here. FANS Update and Feedback Opportunity FANS has been busy continuing to make changes to the menus and offerings. Those changes include the addition of salads, more vegetable and fruit varieties, adding a spaghetti rotini and dinner roll, mandarin chicken, teriyaki chicken rice bowls, carnitas with fresh pico de gallo, and turkey sandwiches, among others. We continue to provide additional meals when students are not on campus. For example, elementary students receive a meal for Wednesday and all students can receive a meal for the weekend. Middle school students are provided a free grab and go meal back for the AM students as they exit campus, and the PM students are offered a free grab and go bag as they enter campus. High School students will also be provided a free grab and go meal bag as they leave campus each day at noon. Links to all menus: https://novatofans.org/index.php?sid=2901132305319613&page=menus To further assist families and the opportunity to provide feedback on our FANS hybrid 2020-2021 offerings, we have created a Google form: http://bit.ly/2021FANSFeedbackEng. This can also be found on the NUSD and FANS websites and will be open for the remainder of this school year. Virtual Learning Academy I encourage all our NUSD families to explore the weekly VLA newsletters. In there you will find out what some of our middle school VLA classes are learning, and from the elementary newsletter how "Dare Mighty Things" on the Mars Rover Perseverance parachute can be connected to us all. Here are links to this week's VLA newsletters: Elementary – February 25, 2021 Middle School – February 25, 2021 Have a great weekend." Sincerely, Kris Cosca This press release was produced by the Novato Unified School District. The views expressed here are the author's own.