May 1, 2020

Friday, May 1, 2020

Dear Wyomissing Area JSHS Parents/Guardians
 
Good afternoon Wyomissing Area families, I hope this message finds everyone healthy, safe, and well.  As all Pennsylvania schools remain closed for the remainder of the 2019-2020 school year, we will continue to move forward with on-line instruction, communicate all updates as we receive them, and work in collaboration with our students and staff in an effort to best support them. 
 
Instruction Update:

All students are expected to log on to Schoology and check their WASD emails every day and communicate with their teachers when necessary. All teachers will continue to post resources and assignments to Schoology at least three days per week. 

• Teachers will continue to be available between the hours of 10:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m. and 1:00 p.m.-3:00 p.m. for our students to contact them with any questions.  
• Email  [email protected] to submit a help request to the technology department. 
• Despite the school closure, it is our responsibility and expectation that every student participates in learning and instruction from now through the end of the school year on June 5, 2020.  All assignments will count toward your final grades for the 4th marking period and are expected to be completed. 

• The 4th quarter begins today, Friday, May 1, 2020.  The 4th quarter is always the heaviest weighted quarter and in order for students to be successful they are expected to log in to Schoology, check their WASD email, and communicate with their teachers on a daily basis. All assigned work will have extended deadlines to accommodate our students in a virtual teaching and learning environment.  For the 4th quarter of the 2020 school year only the grading scale will be adjusted to further accommodate students and to lessen the stress of online instruction. The adjusted grading scale for the 4th quarter grades will be:
o 0-64     D
o 65-74   C
o 75-84   B
o 85+      A
• There will be no new grades or assignments the last week of school, June 1-5.  This time will be used for students to turn in outstanding work and for teachers to work on finalizing 4th quarter grades.
• There will be no final exams for the 2019-2020 school year.
• Please note that our 4th quarter grading policy is subject to change per the direction of the Pennsylvania Department of Education.

Online Etiquette & Plagiarism Guidelines
• Please take some time to review with your child the attached documents pertaining to best practices in virtual conferencing and academic honesty. 

AP Update
• AP students who are planning on taking the online AP exams, please review the message and embedded links below from the College Board.
• AP Testing Guide for the online exams:  2020 AP Testing Guide.  This guide explains the exam day process, the steps students need to take before exam day, and provides details about the e-tickets students will need to participate. 
• Exam Day Checklist for students:  2020 AP Exam Day Checklist  Students should complete this checklist for each exam they take and keep it next to them while testing.
• Please make sure students update their College Board accounts with accurate email and text contact information.  Have them whitelist the following email domain we are using for the e-ticket:  [email protected] 
o Mrs. Gockley sent an e-mail to all AP students advising that personal e-mails be used in place of school e-mails so that the exam entrance ticket is not filtered out. If they have not already changed the e-mail address in the AP Student account, they should do that now.

Class of 2021 (Juniors)
• In past years, college representatives have visited Wyomissing Area for small group sessions with students. Colleges are reaching out to the Counseling Office to continue these sessions virtually. The Counseling Department will post these events in Naviance under the College Rep visits section and send this out to students on Schoology; however, parents are encouraged to monitor students during these online events as counselors cannot monitor the live interactions with the college representatives as we would in the school building. Again, this only pertains to this year’s juniors during the course of the quarantine. 

Lunch/Breakfast:
• We will continue to serve meals at all three buildings on Mondays (for Monday and Tuesday) and Wednesdays (for Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday).  Come see us at any of our three buildings between 11:00 a.m. and 12:30 p.m.; we love to see our students. 
 
Additional Information: 
• Please visit our District website for all past communications, helpful links, and community resources at the following link: https://www.wyoarea.org/departments/health_services/coronavirus
 
Thank you all and be well.

Dr. Jones