Coronavirus – Update 3.24.20
March 24th, 2020
Parents and families of John Rex,
You may have heard as of March 23, 2020 – State Superintendent of Public Instruction Joy Hofmeister announced she will propose a Continuous Learning Plan to complete the school year without reopening school buildings. School will resume with distance learning, instead of traditional, in-person instruction or extracurricular activities. She based this decision on the importance of keeping you and your children safe, and to adhere to the Centers for Disease Control critical safety guidelines.
The Oklahoma State Department of Education will send district leaders a framework with guidance on creating the Continuous Learning Plan, which we expect to have by the end of this week. I will update you as soon as I receive more information. In the meantime, John Rex wants to offer a tentative timeline so our families can start planning how the Continuous Learning Plan will take place in their homes.
March 25-April 5th: No teacher-led instruction is expected to take place during this two-week window, however, we are providing some helpful resources and activities to keep students learning! Teachers created maker mats with varied activities for each grade level, which is currently here in the Instructional Resources Tab on the John Rex website. The grade-level specific maker mats are a collection of easy at-home activities all on one page. Teachers have also created videos as a way to say “hello and we miss you,” which will be posted on Class Tag this evening.
Additional online resources that require access to the internet can be found here, under specific grade levels. These are John Rex approved online resources for students. We hope this resource is helpful for you and will reduce your time researching educational and safe activities to do at home. These resources can be used to practice academic skills. Many students are already familiar with these online resources.
April 6- May 20: John Rex will add content-specific and grade-level specific resources using our existing curriculum for math, science, reading and social studies. We’ll provide suggested schedules for instruction, academic goals for each content area and teacher-made videos to support families. You will find these on the educational resources tab on our school website. The added resources for math, science, reading, and social studies will be both online and offline.
Don’t have internet access? We’ve got you covered! John Rex will also package these resources and materials for students who do not have access to the internet or a way to print materials. We are uncertain whether this will be a pick-up system or delivery, but we are planning now and updates will be forthcoming.
Please complete the following survey to help us know which resources need to be printed, and how our families plan to access these resources. So far, we’ve had just over 100 families complete it. Thank you! We need everyone to complete the survey as soon as possible. You can access the survey here:
https://forms.gle/CS7Z9DEwm6Bbw79Q8
Please know, we are in this together. You are not alone. John Rex teachers and staff are dedicated to making sure our Continuous Learning Plan will be accessible to all families and will provide support, guidance and adequate resources for completing the school year. Our staff is developing that plan now and will have it ready by April 5th.
Grateful to be a ROCKET!
Heather Zacarias
Interim Superintendent
John Rex Charter School
hzacarias@johnrexschool.org
