Reply to Why is Janney not fully open 4 days a week vs Murch and Lafayette?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The principal who my fellow Janney parents chased away with their constant demands did actually already answer the exact question in this thread when the Q4 plans were announced: It had to do with what the Q3 model was, in addition to the health and safety protocols. And the local school advisory team was involved in the decisions for both Q3 and Q4.

I realize it may be more satisfying emotionally to just assert that the principal is somehow not doing her job or that the teachers are being obstinate for no reason, but in reality, there's an explanation for this decision. Disliking the results of the decision doesn't also require you to pretend there was no reason for it.[/quote]

Can you say the reasons more explicitly? I don’t understand how other ES schools with large student populations are able to return fully but Janney cannot. 
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This was from the email announcing the Q4 plans:

[quote]As with Advisory 3 plans, there will be comparisons between individual school models.  I’ve largely stayed away from explaining our model in comparison to other school models – it’s important for us to remain focused on what we can/are doing and not on what other schools are able to do.  However, each school’s ability to expand programming for Advisory 4 not only relates to the health and safety protocols, but also to the Advisory 3 model that the school chose.

I have received some questions from our families with students in half-day programming related to whether we would be able to increase the half-day offerings to full days now that class caps have been lifted.  As I explained in my Tuesday newsletter, other restrictions have not been lifted and the expansion to full days would require more resources.  I am choosing to focus our limited resources (classroom space and staff) on offering some form of in-person programming to all of our upper grade students who remain at home and want to return.  I can’t justify moving all of our younger students in half-day classes who have been at school for Advisory 3 to larger classrooms and providing more adults to support teacher planning and break coverage when there are so many students in grades 3-5 at home who want to return.
 
The more complicated answer on why some schools can offer more full days of instruction is because they use Simulcasting – we opted out of using this model school-wide for a variety of reasons.  The LSAT discussed this possibility in November/December and ultimately decided against it.  The impact on the virtual-only students, especially our younger students, is significant and the demand on our teachers would be high.  It’s hard to properly visualize a classroom that’s Simulcasting, but imagine a teacher at her laptop teaching to the kids on the screen and to the kids in-person at the same time – or imagine that teacher instructing the in-person kids, then asking them to do independent work or to be quiet while the teacher then instructs the kids on a screen – you can see how everyone could get less in this model.  However, this model does allow more students to return for more time now that class caps have been lifted - in a class of 20 students with 15 who wanted to go back for Advisory 3, those 15 can all return to school on the same days for Advisory 4 and not be spread out over M/Tu or Th/F. [/quote]
 
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