End of First Quarter - Teacher Tips

The end of the first quarter is coming next week. To make sure that everyone is set for success, I have been asked by our teaching staff to share with you before grades are realeased for first quarter.

COVID-19 - Periods 0 and 9

For periods 0 and 9, you will see an "X" on your report card. We are giving this X because the cohort class has not started yet for a grade. Remember that this is currently being used for academic testing and for working through the CTE coursework for your arts lab classes.

FIRST QUARTER GRADING -

We have a lot of students and families that are behind on turning in assignments and engaging in school due to COVID-19. Our teaching staff reached out over the past few weeks for parent/teacher/student conferences in hopes of Encore being able to help with student success. This has helped with quite a few students, but there are still students that are treating this time as "enrichment" versus "regular school time." This will affect the marks that will show up on your first quarter report card this week.

Due to the Distance Learning struggle for any student that is earning a "D" or an "F" on their first quarter report, you will be granted an "NM" signifying that there is not enough work completed to give a grade until you have completed enough work to earn a grade. Students earning an "A", "B", or "C" will get the appropriate grade.

To help with incomplete work for this grading period, I suggest taking advantage of Wednesday when there is no school as well as Thursday and Friday that have been designated as class makeup days to complete the quarter. Let's get those assignments in and the grades up.

DROPPING ARTS COURSES

There is a small group of students that are trying to drop their arts classes. We are strongly discouraging any drops in arts classes because when the time comes to return to school, you will be unable to join the course curriculum in the middle of the year. I know that some of the arts courses are weird using Distance Learning, but we want to make sure that you are getting all of the career technical education curriculum for your classes. If you drop the arts courses, you will be unable to join the class when we are back on campus.

MATH I/II COURSE CHANGES

I am super excited to invite our newest teacher to the Encore family, Mr. Capella for Math I and II. He is a long time veteran teacher that is eager to teach our favorite pirates. Remember a few weeks back I had presented that we were looking for a math teacher to make sure we could get overall class sizes down in math so we could work on closing achievement gaps in math for our 9th and 10th grade students. Thank you for your patience and your warm welcomes for Mr. Capella.

DELIVERIES START ON MONDAY

Remember that starting on Monday, our campus aides will be providing delivery service for arts and academic items to students that cannot get the appropriate transportation to get the items from the campus. If you need something delivered, let your teacher know and they will arrange for the delivery.

NO SCHOOL ON WEDNESDAY

There will be no school on Wednesday in honor of Veteran's Day. Have a great day off.