Good Afternoon Marston Parents,
I hope your child’s school year is off to a great start! We have certainly worked hard to help get your child online and learning. Many things went well and we learned from the things that didn’t go very well. We remain 100% committed to providing your child with an excellent education this school year. We will keep working with you to make this happen.
We consolidated our most important online learning information into one document. Please review and bookmark this important resource: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Csnr1UsoVIDp1QptMd9DjGGa8K5_LHWXh0YvIGfSoQM/edit?usp=sharing This document contains many answers to our students’ and parents’ most frequent questions. We will periodically update this page. Topics in the document include: how to access online classes, Zoom troubleshooting, student email accounts and textbook pick-up make-up dates.
Here is some important, additional information:
- Our Back to School Night for Q1 classes will be on Zoom on Thursday, September 17 at 6pm. Parents are encouraged to attend three 15-minute sessions based on their child’s schedule.
o 1st period class 6:00 p.m. – 6:15 p.m.
o 2nd period class 6:20 p.m. – 6:35 p.m.
o 3rd period class 6:40 p.m. – 6:55 p.m.
o Zoom Session Links will likely not be emailed until the morning of 9/17/20.
- We will have an additional virtual Back to School Night for Q2 classes (periods 4,5 and 6) on Thursday, November 5 at 6:00 p.m. Please mark your calendar.
- Due to COVID restrictions the Marston PTSA executive board election was not held at our annual meeting last spring. The election will take place virtually on ZOOM on Tuesday September 15th at 6:30 p.m. The Zoom Meeting ID Number is 850 1891 9457 The Passcode is: 461447 PTSA is also encouraging parents to run for vacant positions during this election; nominations will be taken from the floor.
- IMPORTANT – ACTION NEEDED: Parents, many of Marston’s annual goals and metrics have changed this year due to online learning. This year we can’t rely on old metrics such as student behavioral data and state assessment data to monitor our progress. I am asking ALL MARSTON PARENTS to take this brief 2-question survey and indicate what you feel Marston’s priorities should be for this school year. We will create 2-3 measurable goals from the survey data and monitor our progress on these goals throughout the year. We need a large sample size for this survey, so please participate! Click here to take the brief survey: https://forms.gle/mHoFmDpZcFUXTSUh8
- To report a student absence, please email Nancy Santos at [email protected] Please email instead of call because the remote voicemail system is still not fully operational.
- During remote learning, the deadline for teachers to submit daily attendance is in the afternoon (instead of during the class period). The result of this protocol is that Marston will not be able to contact parents about a student absence until the next day. Our current plan is to have Marston staff personally call parents whose child missed one or more classes. The protocol will likely change later in the school year.
- In response to a parent request, we are creating an optional math enrichment program in Khan Academy for students who don’t have math this quarter. This resource should be available next week.
- Some parents have asked when students will return to the physical school site for in-person learning. No date has yet been determined. I am confident that the district will promptly notify all families once this determination has been made.
Thank you for all you have done to get our Mariners online and learning. We will all get better each week.
Enjoy the rest of the week and the upcoming weekend!
Jon Gollias
Marston Middle School Principal