Weekly update

I hope you and your family are well and in good health. The world is a dramatically different place than it was just weeks ago. I want to thank all of you for your patience and support as we continue to navigate the new uncharted territory of this COVID-19 pandemic crisis. As the dust begins to settle with eLearning, I’d like to share with you the philosophy behind some of the decisions made at Nativity.
Our mission remains the same as it did before this crisis: We will work to ensure that your child receives the education that he or she deserves and needs to build a bright future. We have two primary goals for eLearning:
1. Provide engaging online lessons that focus on the essential skills and content in each subject area. These include new skills and content.
2. Provide opportunities for students to hear their teacher’s voice, see their face, and connect.
We hope that we are on our way to achieving these goals while knowing that these are trying times for many. We understand the stress that many families are under, and so we have attempted to develop an eLearning routine with flexible parameters. This is why we have chosen to have instructional days on Tuesdays through Thursdays and leave Mondays and Fridays with no new lessons but with access to teachers via email. It is because of our commitment to quality education with eLearning, we are not counting Mondays and Fridays as instructional days as some schools are. We are committed to creating an eLearning environment that serves all students and provides a reasonable balance for you, your student and their teacher.
The purpose of all lessons sent to students is to provide essential standards and content and to keep students working towards end-of-year expectations. Students will receive feedback on work and assignments as they are turned in for review.
While we do not have all of the answers yet and recognize that there will continue to be some bumps in the road, our faculty and staff are working hard to address the challenges of eLearning. We continue to meet to monitor the situation, review updates, problem-solve and find ways to meet the needs of our students. We have asked our teachers to shift what has been purposefully developed as a brick-and-mortar faith-based operation for the last 64 years into a remote learning environment in a matter of days. I appreciate your patience, grace, and support you have shown as we entered this new phase of excellence at Nativity together. I have so much confidence in and admiration for those in the Nativity School community. I am in awe of the resilience of our students and the strength exhibited by our families and staff during the transition to eLearning.
Stay safe. Stay healthy. We cannot wait to be together in our school once again.