Principal Updates

October 9, 2020

Dear GMS Families,

Here are some updates for you:

• During our school “outage” (through 10/16) it is important that students are following their daily schedule and checking in to the corresponding Google Classroom at the start of class and completing the attendance check in question.
• Tuesday, October 13 students will follow their B day schedules.  Wednesday will be advisory and teacher office hours.  Thursday will be an A day and Friday will be a B day.
• Open House is on Tuesday, October 13.  This will be held virtually.  Parents and Guardians are invited to sit with their child(ren) and review each of their Google Classrooms to view a video presentation from each of their teachers.  These will be available beginning at 4PM on Tuesday, October 13.
• Parent / Teacher Conferences are now being scheduled.  These will be online video conferences.  If you would like to schedule a conference, please email Ms. Halliwell at jhalliwell@groton.k12.ct.us or call her in the attendance office at (860) 446-4200.  The conferences will be held on October 21 (1-3PM) and October 22 (1-3PM and 5-7PM).
• We have received a fair amount of parent feedback regarding how we can make things more consistent for students and families.  As a result we are working on some solutions with our staff to improve the hybrid and distance learning models.
• As you review your child(ren)'s grades on PowerSchool, if you see an "F" as a grade, try not to panic.  If you click through on the letter grade you will see the number of assignments which have contributed to the overall grade.  Take note of the number of points each assignment is worth.  It is still early enough in the first quarter for students to improve their grades, and if there are assignments that are late or missing, check with the teacher about getting those assignments submitted.
• Please see the link to view helpful tips on navigating hybrid and distance learning in a slide show on Parent Support Strategies for Remote Learning.  Special thanks goes to Christine Cabral for her work on this project!

Have a great three day weekend!

Sincerely,