04/06/2020 Video Transcript School Update
Good evening Hamblen County School Family. Today is April 6, 2020. Please review the following and contact Kellie Smith if you have any questions.
1. We have closed the central office to comply with the Governor’s stay at home order. The central office will remain staffed with essential personnel but we will not have our entire staff. This reduction in staff includes our technology department and this will impact our curriculum. We are unable to repair laptops and provide the necessary technical assistance to our students during this time. For this reason, we will suspend any future assignments to high school students until our technicians are able to return to work. Students are still responsible for any assignments issued prior to April 2 but we will not require additional work. Some classes may offer voluntary lesson if there are legitimate reasons to do so. For example, some of our AP classes may want to continue to ensure students are prepared for the AP Exams. However, this work will only be voluntary and not required.
2. The Tennessee Department of Education is partnering with PBS stations across the state to offer 1st-8th grade students up to 30 hours of standards-aligned instructional lessons per week during times of COVID-19 school closures.
Beginning April 6th, thirty-minute educational segments will air from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. CST each weekday on the main channels of each of the six PBS stations across the state which are listed at the end of this broadcast. Additionally, viewers can watch or record up to four more hours of content that will be broadcast overnight.
In additional, broadcast programming, developed by the Tennessee Department of Education in partnership with teachers across the state, will cover English language arts (ELA) and math for first through sixth grades. For seventh and eighth graders, recorded video lessons will be available online starting April 13th.
Accompanying lesson plans and work packets will be posted on the department’s website for teachers and families to use, adapt, and build upon. Access the lesson plans and student work packets at the website listed at the end of this program.
3. The school district will open on-line registration to all students on April 6. Please complete the on-line registration process when it becomes available. You will need to know your log-in information and have a valid email. It is not a problem if you don’t remember your log-ins or passwords. We will provide additional assistance later when we are able to return school for those who don’t remember this information. However, it will help us tremendously if you can register on-line. The process is very similar to what we did last year so attempt to register and update on contact information if you can. We will help you later if you can’t.
4. We still have a few school employees who are considered essential and are still working. These essential workers are required to travel during the stay-at home order. We recommend all staff members use their school identification badge as proof of their need to travel.