WEEK OF JUNE 1, 2020
El Semanario Edison Language Academy – Together Through Two Languages (310) 828-0335 www.edison.smmusd.org
FROM THE PRINCIPAL’S DESK Dear Edison Families, As this week begins, we have only a few days remaining in the 2019 -2020 school year. This will be our last regular issue of El Semanario for the school year. The year that began with such excitement and promise will unfortunately mainly be remembered as the year the Covid-19 virus rolled into town and closed our schools for the last three months of the school year. We talk all the time about 21st Century Learning Skills and students needing to know how to collaborate, be flexible and resilient in the face of change and challenge, and to learn to use critical thinking and a problem solving approach. This year, we were ALL thrust into that reality from one week to the next. With barely two days’ notice, teachers created paper and pencil learning packets for students, and then later in the shutdown came in to a closed campus to pack up and send home school supplies, workbooks and other learning materials for children. They spent long nights, weekends (and in many cases their spring break), learning new technology platforms and planning and recording lessons. Many grade level collaborations were strengthened as teachers supported each other and team taught. Edison’s Reading Interventionists, Special Education Staff, Bilingual Instructional Assistants, and Teaching Artists, Library Coordinator and Literacy Coach all jumped in to provide and support instruction. And as for me, I’ve likened the process of learning how to lead a “virtual school” to what it might be like to build an airplane while flying it. The hours have been long and the learning curve for all of us has been steep, but I couldn’t have asked for a better staff or parent community to work with during such a time. I know that parents also found themselves having to take on new roles and massively larger responsibilities to oversee their children’s learning. This often happened while you tried to balance competing needs for internet bandwidth and your attention from other children and your own work responsibilities. PTA Room Parents
stepped up to help teachers, parents came to Coffees with the Principal, ELAC and PTA meetings to share questions and concerns – all with the aim of improving student learning. And even as their fundraising opportunities dried up, our PTA made a massive commitment to purchase and deliver art and additional school supplies for children. They also chose to refund payments 5th grade parents had made to Pali Camp when the camp was closed and the institution couldn’t or wouldn’t provide refunds. Our community also created two funding drives with a Community Support Network fund to help families whose jobs disappeared and who had urgent needs – and many of you donated to that effort. We’ve learned a lot in this process – promising practices that we’d like to keep and strengthen, and things that we know we’ll need to do differently when distance learning returns. I need to ask for an additional bit of your time as we wind down this year and move into planning mode for next year. Please give us a few more minutes to respond to BOTH the Edison parent survey and the SMMUSD Parent Survey. The links are included later in this newsletter. Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t laud the incredible service provided to our school by Carolina Vila and Stefani Tovar. These two volunteers have been the standard bearers for electronic communications at Edison, produced the weekly Edison eBlast, and collated resources and prepared the weekly Electronic Packets for distribution -- cutting way back on paper and copying and creating greener communications. Both are parents of graduating 5th grade students and will be leaving these important jobs that they have done for so long and so well. Many thanks dear ones – your work as made a difference and we are in your debt. After school closes on June 10, we will only have a skeleton crew on campus for the forseeable future, so please continue to communicate with me (lorum@smmusd.org), Alicia Alvarez