Dear Malden Public Schools Families,

I hope this communication finds you and your loved ones healthy and safe.  I am writing today to share some important news.  The following return to school timeline was proposed by the School Committee and agreed upon by the Joint Labor Management Committee.  This is an important step in our safe return to school.

For now, it is essential that you have the following dates so that you can plan accordingly. Before January 15, we will send out a more detailed communication, including scheduling and logistics, to help provide you with all the information you need to decide what is best for your student and family.

We are grateful for your patience, cooperation, and partnership.  We hope that you have a healthy, restful holiday season and break, and we look forward to seeing you in the New Year.

Sincerely,
John Oteri
Superintendent

Greetings Malden Public School Families,

We hope that this letter finds you well and ready to begin the school year. We begin our classes remotely, tomorrow, in all our schools. We want to update and remind you of a number of items for the upcoming school year.

School Calendar:
We have a new school calendar (HERE 2020-21 School Calendar) for this year. Classes for students begin on September 16. Since Commissioner Riley reduced the number of school days to 170, we will end the year on June 16 (the 170th day of school), barring any days that school is cancelled. There are four professional Development Days during the school year where there is no school. Those days are: November 3, February 12, March 12 and June 17.

Remote Learning:
As we announced last night at the School Committee meeting, we have an agreement in place with the Malden Education Association and we will begin with highest needs students attending school in-person on October 13. Teachers will begin remote teaching on September 16. All of our students in grades 5-12 have been issued a Chromebook and will be able to join their classes online tomorrow.

For our students in grades Pre K through 4, we are awaiting the delivery of our Chromebooks. Once we have the devices, we will set up a deployment plan to get them to you as soon as possible. This delay was out of our control and we are working diligently to secure Chromebooks as fast as we can.

In place of computers for Pre K-4, we have had paper packets printed that will be available for pick up at any K-8 school and at the ELC. You can pick up the packet beginning tomorrow at your own school or at the school closest to where you live. Teachers in grades PreK through 4 will be setting up meetings with your families both online and by phone. We will use the paper packet as the guide while we await our computer delivery. Families will also be able to access the packet materials on our website starting on Wednesday.

For our Pre K-4 families, we know that this is a particularly confusing and stressful time. Our teachers have been provided time to reach out to families over the past ten days to introduce themselves and welcome you to their class. Tomorrow, teachers will be asked to follow their building-based schedule. They will set up Google meets that can be accessed through a device or through a call-in feature. Teachers and building teams will follow up with families who are unable to connect by device or phone call-in feature. Our goal for tomorrow is to ensure that we connect with every family.

K-4 Curriculum Packet:
The K-4 Curriculum Packet is a large packet that has the following parts:
❏ ESL – These are short activities that can be used for our English Language Learners in addition to the content areas.
❏ Exploratory – These are art activities that can be enjoyed by all learners.
❏ Science – The science pages are organized/labeled by grade level, starting with Kindergarten.
❏ Social Studies – The social studies pages are organized/labeled by grade level, starting with Kindergarten.
❏ Math – The math pages are organized/labeled by grade level, starting with Kindergarten.
❏ Social Emotional Activities (SEL) – These are activities for all learners.
❏ Physical Education – These are activities that are good for all ages.
❏ Literacy – Literacy is a separate handout.

ALL K-5 activities are included in this packet. If you need a little practice, you can use the grade level below. If you need a challenge, you can use materials for the grade level above. Your teacher will help you work with the right materials.

Here are two ways you can organize yourself:
1. Pull the packet apart; separate each subject area so that you have one group for math, one for social studies, etc. You can then select the materials that belong to your grade level.
2. If you don’t want to separate the sections of your packet, use a sticky note / post-it to mark where your grade level subjects begin.

Your teacher will talk to you more about your packet of materials when you talk to them this
week.

Breakfast and Lunch:
Starting on Wednesday, September 16, free breakfast and lunch for ALL students will be available for pick-up from 10:30 am – 1:00 pm at Forestdale, Beebe, Ferryway, Salemwood, Malden High School and Linden STEAM Academy. Students and families can pick up their food at any of these locations which is most convenient for them. We hope this will ease the burden of providing meals for families while students are in the remote learning mode. We encourage any and all families to pick a free breakfast and lunch.

Multilingual Help Desk:
We have set up an external Multilingual Help Desk support team to help families with tech questions. You will notice on all of our school websites there will be a phone number and a live chat box that families can use to connect with tech support. The chat box will only show up on the website if there is a live agent available to connect with them. The agent will be “live” on Wednesday, September 16, 7AM-7PM and available Monday through Friday.

This service is exclusively for families for Chromebook support. Translation services are available as a part of the program. This is specifically for families to help with their remote learning. The Helpdesk will assist parents navigate resources and navigate issues with WiFi or chromebooks. If the helpdesk cannot assist, the parents will then be connected with our school based tech team. We are very excited about this feature to help our families with technology. Malden Public School families can call 781-709-8080 for support.

Going Forward:
We are excited about the new school year. Surely, we know it will be different and it will be challenging. Our educators are more than up for the challenge–the challenge and the passion to work with our students in whichever way inspires and supports them are the reasons they became educators. With the newness of remote learning and the potential changes regarding transitioning to the next stage of learning, we understand the need to keep you informed. We will do so frequently during the school year as often as is necessary. Thank you for your patience and continued support. We look forward to partnering with you, even if we begin apart this year. Please stay well and be safe.

Sincerely,
John Oteri

I hope that this message finds you and your loved ones safe and healthy during these difficult times. When we closed school buildings in March, we had all hoped that we would be in a place where we could welcome back students and families in person in the fall. Despite the decision not to return to a full in-person model, we are committed to making the coming year one filled with meaningful learning for all students. We appreciate your patience as we work through negotiations with the Malden Education Association to ultimately bring our students the educational experiences they deserve. We are grateful for the messages of support, the grace and patience with which you have partnered with us in your children’s education, and your willingness to adapt to the many challenges you have faced while juggling health and safety, work, family, and school. We also acknowledge the feedback that, for many families, the crisis learning of the spring fell short of expectations; we know that we can and must do better as we head into the 2020-2021 school year.

Requirements and guidance from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education details a learning experience that includes, but is not limited to, the following:

❏ A school calendar that includes 170 student days (with 850 hours of time-on-learning for elementary and 935 hours for secondary schools)
❏ Daily attendance
❏ Remote learning programs that include regular, two-way communication among students, educators, and families to ensure meaningful opportunities to connect regularly with staff
❏ Grades and assessment of students based on the district’s and educator’s performance criteria for students
❏ Access to grade-level instruction in all content areas included in the Massachusetts curriculum frameworks
❏ A plan to deliver services for special education services and English Learner Education

So how do we deliver all of the above in a remote setting? Our approach is to start with what we know – the structure of a school day – and use that structure to inform the creation of learning experiences that all students can access.

We understand that six straight hours of screen time for students is neither healthy nor engaging for our learners, especially our youngest students. But we also know that predictable schedules and routines, along with a balance of live meetings and independent work, create a structure that provides stability for students and the framework needed for families to fully support their child’s learning.

What might a class look like in the world of remote learning? We believe that connection to caring adults is essential for students’ social-emotional health and that it is important for our learners to be able to interact with their teacher and peers throughout the day in various ways. One example of how this could look is to think of a class from the perspective of Launch – Explore – Land:

❏ Launch – The whole class signs onto the platform to be greeted by the teacher and have face-time with peers. During this portion of the class,
the teacher might read a story, ask a probing question to activate students’ thinking about a topic, or teach a new concept.
❏ Explore – During this stage, students step away from the screen (or log off completely) to practice on their own. Or, they might work with a peer
through a set of questions or a mini-project. During this time, the teacher might pull a student or two together for some extra support and guidance. Or, they might use this time to connect with a family using google meet (or an old fashioned phone call) to see how remote learning is going.
❏ Land – In this phase, students will come together at the end of the class to share their experiences.

In another example, students may be engaged in an exploratory class, such as physical education. In this scenario, the teacher might log on for attendance with the larger group, then offer some suggested physical activities that the student could do inside or outside of the home. Again, at the end of class, students might come together to wrap up the lesson and think about how they can stay physically active throughout the day.

Of course, we know that these are just a couple of samples out of many that illustrate how online learning experiences can look. We understand that learners at different stages have a variety of needs that affect the choices we need to make about time on-screen and types of activities. This is a starting point. We know that remote learning is far from perfect and communication between home and school will be critical in the coming weeks as we enter the new school year. We still have some work to do to get this right, but we believe that providing a predictable structure that allows for regular, two-way communication between home and school; a mix of academics and exploratory activities (i.e. music, physical education, art); and a balance of on-screen and off-screen time, will serve as the building blocks for a successful learning experience in the coming weeks.

We also recognize that families need some help being the best educational partners they can be. To that end, we are making efforts to provide dedicated family help-desk assistance (in multiple languages) to assist with technology issues. We are also working tirelessly to build an online hub of resources for families and to develop training sessions on a variety of topics – from how to use Google to tips on staying emotionally healthy during these challenging times. We can’t promise perfection, but we do promise that we will do our very best to serve Malden’s families on every level. We thank you for your continued patience and support as we embark on the next stage of education in Malden for the 2020-21 school year.

Sincerely,
John Oteri
Superintendent

To the Malden Public School Community,

At the outset, I want to start this letter the way that I ended my last community update – thanking you for your partnership, continued patience, and understanding as we do our best to work through this unprecedented challenge. As we continue to develop our remote learning plan and negotiate and finalize the details with the Malden Education Association, we again maintain that our first priority is and always will be the safety of our community. To that end, the Malden School Committee recently voted to begin the school year with remote learning. As we begin our school year remotely, we will continue to monitor local, state, and national data and research as we plan what our stages of returning to learning will look like during the upcoming school year. At this time, we know that there are still many questions, and we wanted to take this opportunity to share some of our thinking around meeting the needs of our student population.

COMMITMENTS GUIDING OUR WORK
Health and Safety (Physical, Social, and Emotional)

The district continues to actively prepare for a safe return to learning. We are guided by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and our Board of Health on the steps needed to ensure the health and safety of all students, staff, and families. We have ordered all appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE) for staff – from gowns and gloves to masks and face shields, we have a full complement of PPE supplies at the ready. In addition, the district has secured cleaning and sanitizing supplies from hand sanitizers to cleaning solvents for the building. Our custodians have been working since the initial shutdown on March 13th, sanitizing every building including every classroom, every work space, every bathroom, and every common area. Their work continues today and will not stop.

Commitment to ALL Learners

For our students that will be beginning the year remotely, we are working hard as a district to ensure that the structure and feeling of the remote school day is as rigorous and interactive as an in-person school day. Through this district-designed and district-run program, students engage in synchronous and asynchronous learning daily under the supervision of a highly qualified Malden Public Schools teacher(s). The curriculum and lessons are aligned to grade-level state learning frameworks. Students will be provided with a Chromebook and Internet access, as needed.

Learning in this format, as in the other models, will be aligned to grade-level instruction in all
content areas included in the Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks. In this fully remote model, Google Classroom will continue to be utilized as the main platform for learning and grading and the remote learning format will mirror the existing grading policies and procedures of the district. Educators will use the time reserved for asynchronous activities to check in with families, individual students, and/or small groups. In addition, at the beginning of the school year, building principals will inform families of the communication structures within their schools that will serve to ensure regular, two-way communication. District communication will be included on the website (with the ability to translate into languages other than English), social media, and automated calls home.

Also, as Malden returns to school in a remote learning mode it is critical to remember our commitment to our most high-needs students. As outlined in the School Committee meeting on August 6, we will prioritize the option of an in-person return of our substantially separate students to receive the services that are needed for their education. However, the option to remain remote will still exist for any of these families who choose to participate remotely.

Our high needs students can truly benefit from in-person skilled educators who are aware of the unique needs of their students. Allowing them the opportunity to take part in onsite learning can allow additional growth and success for those students who thrive in a learning environment with repetitive instruction in multiple modalities.

Our parents have been patient, supportive and innovative with their students throughout the spring. However, parents, although great educators, can’t be expected to keep up that rigor with the multiple responsibilities of a parent (work, home, and family.) It’s not reasonable to expect them to not at least have the option for in-person services and learning. Given the decision of the Malden School Committee to have most of our students remote, makes this the right time to bring our high needs students back. They will be in their own classrooms of less than eight to nine students and have ample room to be six feet apart. They will have the use of the entire school to stay physically distanced, be provided access to good air flow and have movement throughout their day. Less students will mean they will have less exposure to other air borne illnesses than if the school were filled. Staff will have an easier time getting them from their buses and family transportation. And, they will have access to facilities without concern that other students happen to be in the bathrooms.

Our staff will have access to a full complement of personal protection equipment (PPE). We have smocks, gowns, gloves, masks, and shields already on site. We can order desktop barriers that can be on site before school. With a nurse on site and only a small group of children on site, we can have expedient response time should a child or staff member become ill.

There are many more details that need to be worked out, but in the meantime, at least offering these
services we believe is the right thing to do for our more high-need learners.

As always, we are proud to consider our families partners in this process and look forward to working with you to make sure the experience for our students is the best that it can be.

Stay safe,
John Oteri
Superintendent

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