CURT'S CORNER
Information Overload Trust DVUSD for a slew of school resources By Dr. Curtis Finch Deer Valley Unified School District Superintendent
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iving in a virtual world can send you into information overload. What’s true, what’s not? The Deer Valley Unified School District will continue to work hard to clear up any confusion on the latest information for school-aged students, parents and community members. The district’s website is full of resources on parenting in a pandemic, future oncampus safety protocols, food and nutrition information, and a treasure trove of information on the details surrounding learning. In a COVID-19 learning environment, the district has to be nimble and quick to respond to any programming changes from the state Legislature, government officials, Gov. Doug Ducey, Maricopa County Health Department, and/or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Two main district page links are very helpful for parents and community members during this unique time in our nation’s history. The district has invested financial resources into five very valuable speakers that can be viewed on the “Parent Webinars” link at the dvusd.org website. Ester Wojcicky is an international speaker and author of two books: “Moonshots in Education” and “Raising Successful People.” The ideas behind this webinar are the challenges of remote learning and strategies to encourage creativity and independent learning. School Counselor Phyliss Fagell authored “Middle School Matters” and talks about parenting under the pressure of the pandemic. Maria Dismondy, author of “Spaghetti in a Hot Dog Bun” and 10 other children’s books, talks about raising re-
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silient children and shares the session with social worker Michael Klinker to talk about the important topic of student trauma and learning. Titiana Jordan uses her webinar to talk about the hot topic of how to monitor screen time in this virtual environment. All of these resources are free to the public and can be viewed at any time. The second-most-valuable website link for parents is also found under the Social Emotional Learning (SEL) tab and is labeled “SEL Activities for Families.” The collection of resources for families comes from the “Wide Open School” project, and the work on emotional well-being of students is broken into two parts: sixth to 12th graders and b) prekindergarten to fifth grade. The same district webpage also adds many professional resources, such as All Things E.Q.; Calm; Common Sense Media; Hoonuit; trauma-informed teaching; CASEL; Edutopia; Getting Smart; PBS; time-management apps; CDC; and Stop, Breathe and Think Kids. The collection of
resources will be invaluable to parents and community members who will work with children during COVID-19. Other district webpages also have material on how to talk to your children about COVID-19, tips for supporting your student during learning, supporting children with disabilities in a virtual format, and a large collection of 47 other family resource connections with websites and informational options that are printable to gather your own collection of material helpful for your family. The social-emotional needs are just as important as academics. Get informed today from a resource you can trust: Deer Valley Unified School District. Dr. Curtis Finch is the DVUSD superintendent and can be reached at superintendent@dvusd.org.
