Health Notice – UPDATE 7/1/2020

HOW DID KEHILLAH DO WITH THE PIVOT TO DISTANCE LEARNING?
Of those who responded, well over 95% of our parents and 75% of our students were either satisfied or very satisfied with the online experience.
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CHALLENGES
We also heard some themes related to the challenges of learning online:
Too much time on screen for many kids –94% of our parents observed and 75% of our students reported spending between 7-12 hours daily in learning activities on the screen.
Being online missed many communication cues and this made learning much more difficult for some.
It was difficult to focus for long periods of time.
It was a social-emotional struggle being disconnected from friends. Losing the connection with peers affected the ability to learn cooperatively.
For 25% of our respondents, it was difficult to arrange 1:1 support outside of class time.
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SO, WHERE ARE WE WITH REGARD TO REOPENING PLANS?
As you read in our Principal Patti Carbery’s recent letter asking you to participate in the survey, we have two main task forces, one academic and one facilities/operations, focused on reopening with the physical, social-emotional, and academic wellbeing of our students as top priorities. These task forces have spent countless hours learning how to mitigate risk and provide the best and safest program for our students within a changeable landscape and for a community that has varied needs.
We are currently considering three broad possibilities for schooling next year (subject to change):



Mitigating risk involves all of us:
Over the next two weeks, our Reopening Task Forces will continue to monitor developments that relate to education in the time of COVID-19 and will be constructing the specifics of our plan to reopen in the fall.
We will be working in collaboration with Kehillah’s Board of Directors and will share our plans with you, following the mid-July board meeting. We appreciate your patience and understanding.
In summary, our surveys showed us five things:
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- We were very successful in the pivot to an emergency online program.
- There are ways to make the remote learning experience better as we consider our hybrid program and anticipate being moved online at some point this year.
- Almost everyone wants to get as close to normal, in as safe a way as possible, yet we all understand there will be limitations.
- Flexibility, patience, and resilience will be key assets to our community’s success next year.
- We love our Kehillah!
As I’ve shared with our faculty and staff, this will be in our rearview mirror at some point and we’ll look back on what we’ve endured with a healthy dose of incredulity. Sharon Salzberg, co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society at Barre, Massachusetts reminds us that, “Resilience is based on compassion for ourselves as well as compassion for others.”
Let’s work together to maintain compassion for ourselves and for one another.
Warm regards,
Daisy