Class of 2020: Service Distinction

Good morning,



Each year, we know we have many seniors who have given back to the community over the course of their time as students at UHS. Three years ago, we designed "Community Service Distinction" as a way to recognize students for their outstanding service to community, be it through school, other civic organizations, or religious institutions. All types of community service are eligible.

If a student has accrued more than 100 hours over the course of his or her time at UHS, that student will be eligible for a service distinction cord and designation in the graduation program.

Students have been asked to fill out the form below, but we acknowledge that students will frequently forget unless parents remind them - which is why we are sending this email!


Thank you for the support,



Mike Rubin, Principal

Weekly Notes and Podcast, April 24

See below for our Spartan Podcast for April 24, as well as this week's News and Notes





Dear Uxbridge High School Community:

When I got to UHS, I made a commitment to provide a weekly update of events, happenings, and important news from the school, to provide a level of communication to the community on a consistent basis. That coincided with a more in-depth monthly newsletter, and that has evolved into podcasts, videos, and other forms of media as times have changed. We have discussed topics ranging from improving our schedule to shifting academic programs to bullying and discrimination to the shifting guidance model to athletic and extracurricular achievements. We have shared safety plans in the event of an emergency, we have discussed changes to graduation requirements, and we have shared what we will do if there is snow. But one thing I never could have imagined is writing a letter to you all indicating that our school - and our home away from home for many of our students and staff - will be closed for the better part of three months.

There are a great many details right now that we know, but, as you may anticipate, even more that we do not. This is simply unprecedented for our times.

I share this because, while I have often been proud of my ability to write the right words, find the right phrases, and share a particular insight, I found myself struggling this week to do just that. The only certainty, at the onset, that I felt I had was that school had been closed through the end of the year. The spring sports season was cancelled. Our senior events, things for which our students and families look forward to for a lifetime, are hanging in abeyance, as uncertain as the times around us. Indeed, I went to a dark place, as I shared with our faculty on Tuesday, where I was sad, and I urged everyone to process their emotions - fear, anguish, compassion, sadness, whatever - before turning their attention back to the work at hand. We mourned, we grieved, we accepted (sort of), and we supported.

On Wednesday, teachers were back in virtual classes, offering comfort, instruction, support, counsel, an empathetic ear, sympathy. They came to a faculty meeting and smiled together, joked a little, and helped each other from afar - just as they had for the students. They committed to looking ahead to next year, educators from across the district reached out with ideas for celebrating and supporting the Class of 2020, and we had honest conversations with some parents about some plans. To use a cliche, we turned the page to action very quickly.

It’s in this last cliche that I realized something about UHS and our community. We are dealing with something invisible, insidious, and disruptive. We did not ask for this, we did not plan for this, and we did not anticipate this in our wildest dreams. Yet we have had people answer, adjust, and respond. And so, as we pen a weekly update that has little news beyond a closure, that does not offer many answers for what our curriculum, or reopening, or even graduation this year will look like, it does offer something for you, as it did me: the complete dedication of a district to stay connected to your kids, a willingness to listen and support students and families, regardless of these new conditions, and the understanding that the faculty and staff of Uxbridge High School have owned a “stronger together mentality” where we are committed, unconditionally, to getting past this.

As one important detail: based on feedback from our students, we are extending the deadline for weekly work submission to Monday. Students will now be able to hand things in anytime after Wednesday. If they want to have the weekend free, they can turn work in on Friday. If they need time, Monday is acceptable, as is over the weekend.

In the coming weeks, we will plan to adjust our curricular gaps, to meet with students and classes, to continue meetings with parents, to share our thinking around different events and transitions. We will focus on not only what we teach, but how we teach, when it comes time for supporting students, through the end of this year and into 2020-21. We will smile, we will joke, and we may even cry and sigh every now and then. It’s all okay. In fact, it’s more than okay - it’s who we are. If we weren’t a little bit sad about missing UHS, then we would have squandered far too many minutes, and meetings, and class periods, and tax dollars building a place that we know is such a source of home, life, and great experiences for our 600 students.  Because in the end, even when these weekly messages lack any updates to events, or athletics, or clubs, when we are confined to our homes and not at our fabulous campus on Quaker Highway, and when we are staying connected through unique, frustrating, and sometimes impersonal ways - we all are stronger together, and we still shine through with our #SpartanPride.

Be safe, everyone.

Mr. Rubin

UHS Parent Town Hall

Our UHS Town Hall meeting for tonight is below. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions. We will be sure to continue to provide details and outreach as we get more information. In the meantime, stay connected, share your ideas and feedback, and help you students stay in touch with us.

Parent Town Hall

Greetings, everyone.

I hope this message finds you healthy and safe during these unprecedented and challenging times.

As promised, we are going to host another parent Town Hall, scheduled for Thursday, April 23 at 7:00 p.m. While we do not have any new information from the Governor or Commissioner as of today, we can provide some feedback on the start of remote learning, some updates we have from UHS, and some positives and challenges we have already identified.

The link via Zoom will be sent on Thursday morning.

Warmly,

Michael Rubin, Principal
​Uxbridge High School

Spartan Podcast for April 17

Tune in to the Uxbridge Spartan Podcast for April 17:

Weekly News and Notes

Weekly News and Notes, April 17 We have several updates from UHS this week. Required Assignments With the move to remote learning, we have been sticking to what we think is a reasonable schedule for students as staff. As a positive, many of our students have been taking advantage of office hours, communicating with teachers, and participating in class sessions. However, we also know of many students who are either attending class and not completing assignments, or completing assignments without teachers seeing them. We truly hope to maintain as many connections as possible, so if counselors are reaching out, please know that it is with the interest of ensuring that students earn credit. For the fourth quarter, we are looking at a metric of “Credit” or “No Credit,” and the fourth quarter will not factor into GPA. However, if a student is on the cusp of a passing or not passing grade for the year or semester, failing to accomplish any assignments remotely could impact the student’s ability to pass the course and earn credit for the year. College Board Testing Right now, public health officials have made it clear it's not safe to gather students in one place. Many U.S. states have closed schools for the rest of the academic year, and globally there are widespread school closures across 192 countries. As such, the College Board will not be able to administer the SAT® and SAT Subject Tests™ as planned on June 6, 2020. The College Board assures us that it is working hard to make the SAT available in school and out of school as soon as the public health situation allows. Students will have opportunities to take the SAT to make up for this spring’s lost administrations. If it’s safe from a public health standpoint, The College Board will provide weekend SAT administrations every month through the end of the calendar year, beginning in August. This includes a new administration in September and the previously scheduled tests on August 29, October 3, November 7, and December 5. Students will be able to register for these administrations beginning in May. The College Board will communicate directly with students when the exact date is available. Eligible students will be able to take the exam with a fee waiver. Students who were registered for June and those in the high school class of 2021 who don't have SAT scores will have early access to registration for the August, September, and October administrations. We apologize for the inconvenience. AP Testing Our School Council will be forwarding a recommendation to the School Committee at next week’s meeting that students who do not wish to take the AP test may still receive AP credit. This constitutes a temporary change to our Handbook and Program of Studies. We still hope that many students will challenge themselves with the online assessment, which can be administered at home. Since this is part of the Student Handbook, the decision ultimately rests with the School Committee, but we wanted families to be aware that this was a possible route. More information will follow next week. School Improvement Planning Speaking of our School Council, we have started the process of building our School Improvement Plan for next year. While we remain focused on a number of district and school goals, we would be remiss if we did not acknowledge that the COVID-19 outbreak will have an impact on some of our planning. For those students and staff who will return to us in 2020-21, there are questions relative to skills and content, adjustments to curricula, impact to social-emotional health, and even budgetary responsibilities, considering the economic downturn of the past couple of months. That said, we have had tremendous opportunity to shift the trajectory of UHS over the past couple of years, and we have no plans to change that course. As we attempt to do so often, we hope that you will engage in town meetings with us over the next few weeks and months so that we can best support the challenges and concerns that parents may have, and also leverage so many of our resources within the community. While a school is hardly the be-all, end-all, we realize that we can be conduit of support and normalcy for many students and families. Please be on the lookout for those invitations and meetings! Class Meetings We hope to host class meetings with our juniors and sophomores in the next couple of weeks, and will follow suit with meetings, again with our seniors, as well as our ninth and 8th graders. We want to address any concerns they may have, as well as give any updates we have all in one place. We will also host another parent Town Hall in late April or early May, depending on what we have to share. Food Pantry Finally, our Uxbridge Food Pantry has been grateful for the outpouring of support it has received from the community during these difficult times. They also remain in need of donations, and so we are sharing a link here that will enable families to donate to the Food Pantry if they can: http://www.peoplefirstuxbridge.org/. As always, stay safe, stay healthy, and stay connected. We miss you and our Spartans dearly.

Weekly News and Notes

Greetings,

We have a few updates from Virtual UHS this week.

Classes/Assignments

This week, we started posting assignments that students are required to complete in order to demonstrate that they are continuing to access learning. Teachers are posting assignments on Monday and being flexible with due dates, though we are requesting that students return work for Friday. Where today is a holiday, there will be late work accepted, and students who hand things in that are not given credit (or who miss an assignment) may hand things in at a later time for credit.

We also have virtual class sessions meeting on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Some families and students have inquired about attendance at these sessions, as some faculty members were taking attendance. Please know that they were doing so solely so we can get a sense of who is accessing our assignments and who are not - and if students are not attending the class sessions, nor are they handing in work, we will be focusing some outreach on those students.

At this point, from a grading standpoint, we are looking at the fourth quarter being a "credit/no credit" metric, and, for those who are concerned, we will be doing what we can to ensure that there is no impact on GPA for those marks.

Parent Town Hall

We appreciate the feedback from last week's Parent Town Hall. In the next week or so, we will try to schedule another meeting. We are waiting on contact from Zoom to ensure that we can handle more than 100 people - or we will simply host multiple meetings, perhaps one for underclassmen and one for juniors and seniors. We want to make sure that we can reach the highest number of attendees.

Printing Face Shields

We have mobilized our engineering and technology teachers, as well as several students, to be printing and manufacturing face shields. In collaboration with the Blackstone Valley Chamber of Commerce, several hundred of these shields have been distributed to medical and public safety professionals in our community. We are so grateful to be part of this endeavor and to support those on the front line battling this insidious virus!

Week That Was

Here's our weekly Week That Was video. As you can see, our educators and staff are working so very hard at maintaining connections and bringing content to our students, even from afar. In these extraordinary times, we hope we have maintained some connection for all of you!

Be safe!

Parent Town Hall

Below is the video from our Parent Town Hall, held on Monday, April 6. Apologies again for the access issues - we will work on making sure we have the ability to have more than 100 participants moving forward (or ensuring that things do not revert).

Parent Meeting

Good morning,

In an effort to try and answer some of the questions that could families could have, we would like to hold a Parent Town Hall on Monday night, at 7:00 p.m. The Zoom link will be emailed home and not posted on our website or Blog to avoid it being on a public site and to keep the meeting more secure.

We hope many of you can join us. We will have a brief presentation and will open the floor to the questions you may have. Understanding that we may not all the answers, we will do our best to answer the questions that may be out there.

Moving forward, we may have some of these on a more consistent basis, based on interest and attendance.

Thank you for your continued support, and stay safe.

Sincerely,

Michael Rubin
Principal
Uxbridge High School

UHS Podcast

An update from UHS this week in Podcast form. Thanks to Spectrum1's Cam Jandrow for interviewing Dr. Tiano and Mr. Rubin about our work to manufacture personal protection equipment for our medical professionals.

Weekly News and Notes

Good afternoon,

A few updates from virtual UHS this week.

Senior Class Meeting

We held a class meeting with our seniors this morning that was an opportunity for the students to hear some updates from guidance, the class advisor, and the athletic director. Counselors will be reaching out individually to students in the next couple of weeks to review college selection processes, including explaining some of the shifting deadlines from higher education, ways to engage with financial aid, and different options as students make decisions regarding next year. We explained to the seniors that in some cases family situations are changing due to the COVID-19 outbreak, and if they need support in reaching out to admissions or in planning for next year, we are available for private conversations and to support families however we can.

In addition, we gave the class some direction to provide us with some input regarding planning senior events. We want to give the class an opportunity to share, through their advisor and officers, when they would feel scheduling events, such as the prom, would no longer be sensible. Of course, we are at the mercy of the state's guidance toward gatherings.

We continued to reiterate that our plan is to work with the class to reschedule and postpone as many things as possible - not cancel.

Remote Learning

We begin remote learning on Monday with the posting of assignments. These assignments will be due by Friday at the close of school time (around 2:00 p.m.), though we have directed teachers to be flexible. We anticipate starting with about an hour or two per class per week in terms of a combination of class-time and independent work, which follows the guidelines set by the Commissioner.

If questions come up, please direct students to Google classroom and to be in touch directly with their teachers.

Norms for Remote Learning

As you have probably read or heard about, there have been some instances of individuals disrupting Zoom and Google Hangout sessions being used by class. We are not immune to this at UHS, and we have had some reports of individuals being disrespectful or violating community norms in virtual class space.

Teachers have been directed to enable a "waiting room" before allowing someone into a class, and then only allowing students in who use their proper name and have their cameras enabled. Also, screen sharing will be disabled for anyone except the owner of the room. Finally, if anyone is disruptive in any way, they are removed from the room. We also have directed students to enter rooms on mute, which is also the default setting for any meeting.

In times like these, where adults, students, teachers, and families are all dealing with various levels of stress and discomfort, we would hope that our students act appropriately and within our school's established norms - as if this were a class at the school building. In these times, we require the use of virtual class spaces to ensure that our students and staff are making connections and being supportive, so we certainly hope that we do not have many -if any - of these situations.

A Final Word

These are uncertain times for us all, so please remember that, while teachers are not in the building, they are family members, parents, and individuals dealing with their own challenges relative to this pandemic. Staff will be available during the school day, but we hardly expect them to be by their computers and phones for 24 hours a day. If you need us, please reach out - but please be patient!

UHS in the News

We will leave this week with some positive news about UHS, as our school has been featured in the local news a couple of times this week for our use of our Engineering program to manufacture personal protection equipment for our medical community. We are grateful for the students and staff who have coordinated this effort, which has also involved Whitin and Taft as well. We are so proud to be able to support the medical community, which is courageously tackling this outbreak on a daily basis.

Continue to check email, our school website, and this blog, as we will be continuing to update often.

Be safe, stay healthy, and continue to practice social distancing guidelines. We are, as always, stronger together.

Mike Rubin, Principal
Uxbridge High School

Class of 2020 Meeting

Good afternoon,

We just wanted to provide a quick update on some activities relative to the Class of 2020.

We will be hosting a Town Hall meeting tomorrow (Friday, April 3), with the senior class. We will meet with them from 9-10 via Zoom. I plan on focusing on what we know, giving counselors an opportunity to share specific updates, providing Mr. Lui as class advisor an opportunity to share news, and having Mr. Carbone give the latest regarding athletics. We also emailed all seniors this morning with information regarding the local scholarship process. If students have questions, they should reach out to individual counselors. We will also be sharing some of our counselors' plans for working with seniors through the next month or so, particularly as many are finalizing post-secondary plans. Ms. Smith and Ms. Moran will definitely be on the call with the seniors tomorrow, and the counselors met on Tuesday, Wednesday, and today to iron out many details.

For those who cannot make the meeting, it will be recorded and posted via our website following the meeting.

As a reminder, work beginning Monday will once again be counting, and we would like to remind our seniors to engage with some of these assignments as we move forward through the next couple of weeks.

As I have been sharing with the seniors, it is with a great deal of sorrow that we are having these conversations, but we remain as committed as possible to giving them as many of their culminating experiences as possible.

While challenging, please continue to remind (nag) about social distancing. We miss our seniors, engaging with many of you, and hope to see you on the other side of this closure very soon.

Warmly,

Michael Rubin

Principal

Spartan Podcast: Remote Learning

The Spartan Podcast has been updated with information about Remote Learning at UHS, which will begin on Monday, April 6.

Remote Learning Guidelines

Dear Students and Parents: We wanted to reach out and provide some guidance about remote learning during this recently announced additional time to our closure, as Governor Baker has closed all schools until at least May 4. When we first left on March 13, following guidance from the Commissioner of Education, we anticipated the three week closure would suffice, and our learning resources, at the time, were considered to be a method by which we would provide continuity of learning and prevent regression in the interim period away from UHS. We shared that there is simply no replacement for the in-class magic that happens with teachers every day; we wanted to provide a variety of ways for students to engage with us over the course of that time, while maintaining connections. However, our latest direction is that we are now going to be out longer, and we now must transition from the “provision of learning resources” without any true measure of accountability to a more specific schedule that will have some required assignments for students to complete, while continuing to focus on the connection between students, staff, and school. As we pilot remote learning over these next three weeks, we hope that we will be returning to school at the end of this time away. If not, we will have laid the groundwork for a lengthier closure, the continuation of learning, and more required work that goes beyond optional resources. In short, students now have work to do in order to ensure that they make progress. For the next three weeks, the weeks of April 6, 13 and 27, our intended schedule from UHS will be:

• Monday: Teachers will post all work/practice for the week by 10am, as well as the target skills through which students will be assessed, using our schoolwide learning expectations. Although we are aiming for 1-2 hours per course per week, teachers may provide resources or extension activities for students who are interested in moving beyond the assigned work. Students should check Google Classroom for updates. For example, an AP course may provide students with a practice prompt, review from earlier in the year, and a practice test - with the expectation one is “required” and the other(s) something for students to address as time permits. Parents will receive a Google Classroom update by 10:30 a.m. on Monday. We’ve asked teachers to post work at that date/time so that we do not overwhelm your inboxes throughout the week. Teachers will also link their assignments to a master document for the week that will update on the district website. Parents who wish to receive an email with the assignment for the week may reach out at any time via email to the teacher.
• Tuesday and Wednesday - Students should complete the work/practice that was posted on Monday for each of their classes. On these days, teachers will schedule block-specific meetings, tutorials, or check-ins with their students. To avoid overlapping with other teachers/courses, we’ve set up a schedule for teachers to hold virtual meetings with their classes. (see chart below). Teachers will, during these next few weeks, share with students in advance the goals of those online meetings, which will serve as both a check-in and opportunity to work on whatever assignment is posted for the week.
• Thursday - Students should continue completing the work/practice that was posted on Monday for each of their classes and reach out to their teachers should they have questions and/or need assistance. Teachers will be using this day for professional collaboration with each other and can also host individual or small group meetings with students who request.
• Friday - Students should “turn in” their work from the week by the end of the day on Friday. Teachers will provide feedback about their work and keep track of the completion of student work in iPass so that students and parents can check on their progress - at this point, we are assessing against the schoolwide rubrics, which will help us gauge pass/fail standards as we move forward. Throughout the week, teachers will be available for virtual office hours. They will notify students of when and “where” this is taking place. Additionally, we are linking remote learning norms here and attaching them to the email being sent home. A visual look at the schedule for students is:
  
  We realize this will have an impact on assessment and accountability. Collectively, our goal is for all students to put forth an honest effort toward completing assignments that will focus more on skills than new content, and for those assignments that encourage the introduction of new content to be handled with patience. Most importantly, the goal is for students and teachers, together, to use this opportunity to keep making progress and to stay engaged with learning. We also plan to assess this schedule after three weeks to see if it is something we should continue, or if revisions are needed - or if we are, hopefully, back to school. At that point, we will have more guidance on what the quarter and semester’s grading scales will look like. There will not be any expectation of students being online for six or seven hours every day, trying to replicate the school schedule using online means. Our estimation is that students will be provided about an hour or two of work per course, but that some students may request additional resources or work in specific disciplines. All students are required to submit work on a weekly basis for each class. That said, we understand that family situations are varied and that many of our students have different responsibilities, so we urge students and parents to be in touch with teachers, find some time to complete school work, participate in class meetings, and communicate with us if there are any challenges for which support is needed. That communication enables us to be flexible on a case-by-case basis. We will be meeting regularly as a whole faculty and within departments to ensure that we are meeting the needs of students. Students who have support from special education liaisons and support personnel will have additional outreach from those individuals, and we will also have our school counselors at the ready to deal with any other challenges that may occur. All teachers will be available via email each day during school hours, and, by request, there can be additional sessions scheduled to work with individual teachers. We are still awaiting an update on MCAS from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. The grade 8 and 10 ELA tests have already been preempted, and we will notify you of any updates that may come our way. Finally, we realize that this has perhaps the most significant impact on our seniors. As I shared last week in our Town Hall meeting, we remain as committed as possible to providing as many of the normal senior events as possible. To hear the seniors’ thoughts and questions, we will be scheduling a virtual meeting with the seniors, which we hope to conduct this week. We will be in touch with them directly. We are all committed to supporting all of you during these difficult times. Please do not hesitate to reach out if we can offer any assistance. Sincerely, Mr. Rubin