Due to Manitoba’s attempt to “flatten the curve” of the Coronavirus Pandemic, the government has ordered the suspension of classes. During the week of March 23 – 27, students will be Learning from Home. Teachers at Crystal Springs School have prepared materials and coursework for students to work on from at home. Teachers will be available to help support this learning, either from school or home.
Spring Break occurs from March 28 to April 5.
After Spring Break, during the week of April 6-10, this suspension will continue, with Learning from Home.
April 10 is Good Friday, and Easter Monday and Tuesday, April 13-14, Crystal Springs students will be absent for Religious Services. Therefore, the earliest regular classes would resume would be April 15th.
Things to NOTE:
We would suggest that you keep your students on their regular schedule so they don’t feel their lives are more upset than they already are. This means: Breakfast around 7, start their Deutsche Klasse around 8, start their English Programming around 9. Most of the teachers have a suggested schedule for the students, and the high school schedule and Day Cycle Calendar are posted on Ms. Bergen’s website.
ITV CLASSES
ITV schedule will continue as normal: Teachers will be teaching classes during their regular time slots. CSS will make the ITV studios available to students with some modifications: Social Distancing will be in effect with larger classes splitting into two studios and students sitting a minimum of 2m apart. Afer each class, students will wipe down tables, chairs, and ITV equipment with disinfectant. For students unable to attend they should be able to download recorded classes from at home from the HBNI ITV Content Server.
TECHNOLOGY AT HOME
Many of the resources teachers have set up involve the use of technology like Chromebooks. Also, teachers want to try to stay in touch with students with tools like Google Meet, or Zoom Video Conferencing. To help with this, most of the students from Grades 4-12 can bring home a Chromebook. However, this brings concerns about responsible use. Every student (or parent in the case of K-4s) has signed a Responsible Use Policy outlining what is acceptable use in Hanover School Division. (K-4) (5-12) Students are not to use school devices for any non-educational use. This means they should not be playing games, accessing social media, or browsing entertainment.
While students have their Chromebooks at home, during the school day, teachers can actually monitor their activities with Go Guardian. However, students should be following community guidelines and only be on their device in a public space and be monitored by their parents. We have attempted to set up a network restriction that limits use of school devices from 8:15AM-11:30AM, and 1PM-3:30PM. However, this restriction only works if students are on an open colony controlled WiFi like crystalspring. It does not work if they connect through a personal wifi router set up by the family.
We would suggest the parents keep the Chromebooks in a secure place and only give them to students when they are working on their school work. HSD policy is that students should not be on a school device unless there is an adult supervising them. We will likely be making some iPads available for the K-3 students as well but those have not be set up yet.