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.