Little Red School House
and Elisabeth Irwin High School

A Pre-K-12 Progressive Education

Our Program

Our Principals' Blog

This Most "Unique" Spring Break

Faith Hunter

Dear Parents,

I hope you are staying healthy and safe during this most unique "spring break." I continue to hear reports of students holding online playdates and parents socializing via Zoom, FaceTime, and other apps. I am grateful to be part of such a strong community.

I wanted to provide you with another update about LREI@Home. Our faculty have been meeting online regularly to prepare for our remote learning program. On a daily basis, I am awed by the level of thought and care they have devoted in preparation for your children’s learning experience. We look forward to sharing this work, and I am eager to hear your feedback.

Our faculty, administrators, and I are determined to provide continuity of learning and a sense of community for all LREI students while they are attending LREI@Home. While we recognize that nothing can completely replace face-to-face interaction, our plan is to utilize our existing technological infrastructure and the resourcefulness of our amazing teachers to continue learning at home. Our plan will continue to evolve as we navigate these uncharted waters, and we appreciate your patience and understanding during this time.

I have received questions from parents about learning expectations for next week. Some I will address here and some will be addressed in emails our teachers have crafted specifically for your child’s class.

The goal of LREI@Home is to provide a variety of learning opportunities for students that are developmentally appropriate and sensitive to the scheduling demands of families. Between now and Monday evening, you can expect to receive an email from your child’s teacher with more details about each individual class program.

Teachers will run their full academic daily program: Morning Meeting, Reading, Writing, Word Study, Math, Social Studies, and one to three specials per day. You can expect a full program along with an abundance of resources for enrichment.

To ensure engagement throughout the day from 9:00am–2:30pm, teachers will be connecting with students in a variety of ways, (e.g., Zoom morning meetings will happen every day, regular one-on-one student conferences will be scheduled as well as small group meetings (reading, math, etc), written feedback on assignments posted on Seesaw, and more.

To clarify, the “approximate learning times” sent out before break are meant to give families an understanding of the number of minutes we generally expect children to work independently. The times do not include lessons, one-on-one conferences, small-group instruction, snack, recess, lunch, and transitions. Your child’s teacher will be individualizing their approach as appropriate to the class.

We are shaping the program with the understanding that our younger children will require more adult support, that many adults will be working, that there are multiple siblings in many homes, that hours of screen time are not good for our young students, and that families are in different time zones. We ask for your patience and understanding as we work out the details of the program. If you find the program difficult to accommodate with your schedule, we more than welcome your feedback.

Our remote learning approach is based on lessons learned from our experience at LREI, as well as the experiences of our peer schools and educators in other countries who have been engaging in remote learning for some time. As such, we have done our best to anticipate issues that may arise and devise multiple solutions for each of them.

We will be checking in regularly amongst our faculty, with families, and with children to make adjustments as needed.

I will be sending out information at the end of this week that will include details for a Town Hall Zoom call during the early evening on Monday to answer any lingering questions and ensure we are all prepared for Tuesday’s start.

In this challenging moment my confidence rests in knowing that everyone at LREI is working together to create the best possible outcome for students and families. We appreciate your partnership and welcome your feedback.

Warm regards,