Covid-19 Response

SEPARATE BUT UNITED Covid-19 Response

The past couple of months have brought many new challenges for the Cathedral High School community. The COVID-19 pandemic presented us a unique challenge, unseen or experienced in our lifetimes. There have been a few turbulent financial crises in the past years, but this crisis touches all aspect of our lives. Cathedral made the necessary changes to adjust to the times and to meet our student needs. In response to the state and local directives, our campus has been closed. Despite not having face to face instruction, you will be pleased to know that our classes were being taught by our teachers online, so our students still received an exceptional education.

Cathedral High School followed the regular school day schedule, so that our students were able to feel comfortable with their new daily routine. Our faculty and administrators made daily calls to students and parents to ensure student success and to encourage continued academic learning. Our personal counselors were available for our students to provide mental health well-being during this difficult time. Additionally, we posted updates on our website and our Principal contacted the families with updates through School Reach. We also used our social media platforms to highlight our students and keep our school community informed. During these changing times, we believed that communication was vital.

Attendance was taken daily, and our administrators and teachers followed up with phone calls if students were not present for class. We used the Google Classroom platform and our teachers provided a variety of lesson plans and class structure. Cathedral teachers used Zoom sessions, Google Meets, Pearson Success Net, Khan Academy and additional online resources and applications.

Cathedral students were able to adjust to the Distance Learning format quickly, because of our experience with our 1 to 1 iPad program and familiarity with Google Classroom which was already in daily use in all classes. Our students have been using iPads as their primary source of digital textbooks for their entire time at Cathedral and were familiar with the different platforms that are being used currently. Over the past several years our students had been gaining experience and expertise as more of our teachers were using online resources, programming, and applications. The biggest challenge of the new digital landscape is the social isolation; our students and faculty are looking forward to being back on campus in the Fall of 2020.

T: Jason Argueta ‘20 B: Xavier Gutierrez ‘23