Hello ACPA!
Thank you so much for your patience and support as we navigate this transition into virtual learning at ACPA. I hope that you are all feeling healthy and doing well. Please continue to communicate with us if you have needs that we can assist with or questions about general expectations for attendance or work being assigned.
Yesterday afternoon, Governor DeWine announced that Ohio schools will be closed through May 1. ACPA will adhere to this state mandate. While we all will miss seeing our ACPA community and being physically at school, we recognize the importance of the Shelter in Place/Stay at Home order and encourage everyone to adhere to the guidelines in place, so that when we do return to school, we are all healthy and ready to get back to learning and everything that makes ACPA wonderful!
For now, we will continue with virtual ACPA – teachers are working hard to create engaging lessons, so please continue to encourage your students to log in to their ACPA e-mail everyday, complete the daily attendance form, and complete and turn in work assigned by your teachers.
Last week, House Bill 197 was passed by the Ohio legislature. This legislation had language regarding graduation for the class of 2020, leaving a lot of the decisions regarding graduation requirements up to schools and administration. We are being very deliberate and careful about these decisions, and doing our best to recognize the situation our community is currently in, but still hold our students to a high academic standard and prepare them for the future. We will have an update on this as soon as we can.
House Bill 197 also has language that waives state testing for the spring. ACPA will not be administering Ohio End of Course Exams in all grades as a result. This gives teachers some freedom to cover some more interesting standards-based topics that sometimes do not get as much time or depth as they would like to give them. This should make the online work more engaging!
Finally, ACPA will not be using any calamity days, or adding any additional days to the planned 2019-2020 calendar, instead counting the work being facilitated online by our staff and completed by students through at least May 1 as an alternate required course of study. Look for more information on how to make this transition successful this afternoon in a word from Ms. Waluzak.
Please continue to reach out if you need assistance with making this transition with us. We will connect you to the right person to help problem-solve and figure out a plan that works. We’re all in this together, and I’m thankful I’m in it with my ACPA family.
Take good care of yourselves,
Mr. Gatto