Parents, We Need Help!

We are just three weeks away from the end of semester one. This has been the most difficult semester for students worldwide because none of us signed up to be a part of technological revolution and a global pandemic wrapped into feeling like we are trapped in our houses. This has been challenging. Encore understands the students' frustration and I promise that we are doing everything we can to try to support them through this difficult time.

Encore's teachers are struggling right now with the lack of completion of work in their classes by students. While we have some of the highest attendance rates that we have ever had because students are logging in to their classes and checking in when they are working asynchronously, we are struggling with students actually completing the assigned work for their classes. Unfortunately, with semester grades only a couple weeks away, we need our Encore parents to check in on their student's progress with completed work to make sure that they will pass first semester. The completed work is just as important as the student showing up every day.

In the arts classes, students will need to have completed the first three full units in their encorestudent.com class by the end of the semester along with the other portions of the class. This class counts for 25% of their overall grade. If they do not complete the first three units of this online curriculum, the best grade they can get in their arts class is a "C." This online class is either "Arts, Media, Entertainment Level I", "Fashion and Interior Design Level I", "Hospitality, Tourism, Recreation Level I", or "Child Development, Education, Family Services Level I."

In their academic classes, they need to complete all of their assignments from the first semester to make sure that they can get the best grade they can. While Encore teachers are giving full credit for all late assignments during COVID-19, the deadline for the completion of all work for semester 1 is at the end semester 1. Your students have 3 weeks to make up all missing assignments.

It is important for students to log in and participate in classes every day. That is an important part of school. It is also important for them to understand that the "classwork/homework" still has to be completed in order to make the grade in school. We do understand how hard it is right now, but at some time we all need to rise to the occasion and work on completing the task at hand. We cannot control the length of time that we will spend in distance learning, but we can control how much effort we put into not losing a year of education in the process. Our pirates are smart and I know that we can do this. Completing school this way will make us stronger and smarter. Let's do this!

As a reminder, we still have support mechanisms for all of our kids on campus. Tutoring is available every morning Tuesday through Friday for academic classes from 7:45 - 8:15 am with your regular academic teachers. If you need more help, you can email your teacher for extra help. You can also get peer tutoring help from the National Honor Society by emailing Mr. Parker jparker@encorehighschool.com so he can help set up peer tutoring sessions. If you need social/emotional help through this, please reach out to our counseling department counseling@encorehighschool.com so we can make sure to help you. Support is here, all you need to do is ask.

Parents - We have one more request for you to help us with. We have an ongoing problem with students logging in to class, turning on their camera, pointing their camera at the ceiling, and then leaving the class. Can you help us make sure that your student is actually attending class by being a part of class? Zoom is hard and we can only do so much from our end to make sure the student is engaged. Your help would be very much appreciated. Thank you.

Again, we know this is hard and we very much want to return to in person instruction just like you do. In the meantime, all of us need to do our best to et what we can out of this extremely strange time. Thank you for doing your best, trying, and being a pirate.

Hang in there pirates and stay strong. Do not let COVID and ZOOM fatigue dictate your learning outcomes this school year.

Thank you for your ongoing support of youth arts and thank you for your ongoing support of Encore High School.

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Denise Griffin, CEO is the author of this blog for Encore Education Corporation. Part of Encore Education Corporation is Encore High School, a free public performing arts regional high school in Southern California grades 7 - 12. Encore's program is currently taking applications for the fall 2021 enrollment. Encore offers full time, hybrid time, and independent study programs. Encore offers transporation from the Inland Empire and the high desert. www.encorehighschool.com. Where arts and academics grow together. WASC Accredited. Copyright 2021.