
West Ada School District Update
February 4, 2021
- Criteria for Middle and High School Return to In-Person Learning
- Calendar Items of Note
- Technology Maintenance
Criteria for Middle and High School Return to In-Person Learning
We know this school year has been chaotic, unusual and difficult. West Ada School District is extremely proud that we have been able to successfully have students in grades K-5 attend school in-person since the fall. We now look to how we can successfully get grades 6-12 back to in-person learning. Below is what will be proposed to the West Ada School District Board of Trustees on February 9.
When making this decision, we formed two committees, one for middle and one for high school. Both committees agreed on the below criteria and expectations. A physician, principals and teachers made up the committees.
While West Ada School District administration would like to see these grades come back sooner, we understand that the vaccine needs time to become effective. We also realize the fourth quarter is a natural transition which will allow for this change to full-time in-person learning with the least amount of disruption. We also recognize parents and teachers alike need time to plan for this change.
West Ada School District will return the students in grades 6-12 to daily in-person learning once the following criteria have been met:
- All West Ada School District staff have been given the opportunity to receive both doses of the COVID-19 vaccine and the additional two-weeks after the second dose to reach peak immune response.
- Student/Staff percent positive below two percent for two consecutive weeks.*
Based on criterion #1, and the current rate of vaccine doses being made available, the 28 days needed between dose one and dose two, and then the necessary two-weeks after the second dose to reach peak immune response, the school district would return students in grades 6-12 to daily* in-person learning, no sooner than the start of fourth quarter:
- High School – Friday, April 9
- Middle School – Tuesday, April 13
*Student/staff percent positive calculated by looking at each school’s student/staff positive case counts divided by total student/staff enrollment.
Case counts reflect positive cases that were infectious while in attendance at school or school-based activity.
Expectations
- All middle schools will need to meet the criteria and return to daily in-person learning at the same time.
- All high schools will need to meet the criteria and return to daily in-person learning at the same time.
- *Monday will continue to function as a remote learning day, in-person learning would occur on Tuesday-Friday.
- Mask requirement will remain in-place at minimum through the end of the 2020-21 school year.
- Focus on mitigating measures will continue (hand hygiene, sanitizing and continuing to facilitate as much physical distancing as possible).
- Six-feet of physical distancing will not occur when all students are back in the building.
- Expectation that all teachers at middle school and high school can deliver fully synchronous learning to students on quarantine/isolation.
- If any middle school or high school needs to transition to full remote learning due to positive cases, clusters, or outbreaks in the two weeks prior to fourth quarter; the school district executive team will evaluate whether the situation would necessitate a delay to returning to full, in-person learning.
Calendar Items of Note
February 9: Board Meeting - On the agenda is a review of the secondary criteria for returning to school.
February 15: Presidents’ Day – No School
March 8-19: Track Break for Modified Calendar Schools
March 22-26: Spring Break
April 8: No School for Grades K-8 Following Traditional Calendar
April 13: Grades 9, 10 and 12 Remote Learning; Grade 11 at School for SAT
Technology Monthly Maintenance for February
West Ada School District conducts monthly Technology maintenance activities. Maintenance is scheduled for Thursday February 4, 2021. Minor interruptions to District Technology Services can be expected. Known outages that may affect students and parents during February’s maintenance activities are:
Power School will be offline from 5-9 p.m. while system updates and patches are installed.
Very brief interruptions to login capabilities for the following applications and services are expected as we update how login requests are processed for these systems:
Cengage 2-2:15 p.m.
Fitness Gram 3-3:15 p.m.
SAVVAS (Easy Bridge/Pearson) 3:45-4 p.m.
Clever 4-4:15 p.m.
If you experience any issues accessing these systems after maintenance is complete, whether on a district-provided or personal device, please log out of the application and log back in. If this does not solve the problem, seek support from the technology help desk: https://www.westada.org/techsupport.
PowerSchool E-Mail Messages to Resume
Great News! The school district is restarting the PowerSchool e-mail services. This feature allows parents to optionally receive grades, attendance, and assignment information to be emailed for students linked with their PowerSchool parent account. Parents who were receiving this information prior to the 20-21 school year will begin receiving email notifications the week of February 15.
How do Parents enable this service or change their existing preferences?
Log into the PowerSchool parent account at ps.westada.org/public. Once in the parent account, click on the “Email Notifications” link and update the following fields:
Frequency Form Area (required) - Please select either the daily, weekly, bi-weekly, and monthly frequency option for receiving student information emails.
What Information Would You Like to Receive Form Area (required) – select at least one of the options for receiving student assignment and grade information.
Additional Email field (optional) - input any additional emails, comma separated, for others that might benefit from this information, such as family members.
Once in the parent account, click on the “Account Preferences” link to verify the email address that will be receiving the student information.
PLEASE NOTE – this email address is associated with the PowerSchool parent account and is not synced with the SchoolForms (Registration) Household contact information. It is important to check both Web forms applications to make sure the data is accurate.
How do parents stop receiving student information email notifications?
Parents can stop receiving student information email notifications by logging into their PowerSchool parent account and clicking the “Email Notifications” link and setting the Frequency Form Area to Never.